iffl 


•-,rri 


fiXQ 


OPTIONS 


OPTIONS 


BY 

o. 

Author  of  "The  Four  Million,"  "The  Voice  «/  the 

City,"  "The  Trimmed  Lamp,"  "Strictly 

Business,"  "Whirligigs"- 


• 


"' 


PUBLISHED  BY 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

FOR 

REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS  CO. 
1920 


COPYRIGHT,  igOQ,  BY 
HARPER   &  BROTHERS 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  OF 

TRANSLATION  INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES, 

INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 


CONTENTS 

MM 

"THE  ROSE  OF  DIXIE"    ...*..»  4..  .  & 

THE  THIRD  INGREDIENT       .      .      .      ;..     t.  (.i  .  20 

THE  HIDING  OF  BLACK  BILL      .      .     „,     ,.,  ,.;  .  38 

SCHOOLS  AND  SCHOOLS    ....     ,.t     >•  ;.  .  66 

THIMBLE,  THIMBLE  ....>..-,..  72 

SUPPLY  AND  DEMAND     .      .      .      •  .  ''M    M  '  »  .89 

BURIED  TREASURE     .      .      .....»,     »•  .  .  10* 

To  HIM  WHO  WAITS       .      ,     ,.     „.     »     t.  „.  ..  119 

HE  ALSO  SERVES       ....     ,.     ».     ».  >.  .  134 

THE  MOMENT  OF  VICTORY    ,.      .     i,,     H--     »  .  .  150 

THE  HEAD-HUNTE»       .      .      .      .     «.     >  .  .  167 

No  STORY ,.     t.     t..     .     w  t.,  .  185 

THE  HIGHER  PRAGMATISM    .     :.     ,.     -..,     ,..  .  .  199 

BEST-SELLER        .      .      ...     i.      .      i..     •...•     •  •  •  210 

Rus  IN  URBE       .      .     ,.     (.,     .     i.,     w     (..  •..  .  227 

A  POOR  RutB                                   i.,     .     ,.•  .  .  240 


OPTIONS 


OPTIONS 


"THE  ROSE  OF  DIXIE" 

Tlit  Rose  of  Dixie  magazine  was  started  by  a 
stock  company  in  Toombs  City,  Georgia,  there  was  never 
but  one  candidate  for  its  chief  editorial  position  in  the 
minds  of  its  owners.  Col.  Aquila  Telfair  was  the  man  for 
the  place.  By  all  the  rights  of  learning,  family,  reputa 
tion,  and  Southern  traditions,  he  was  its  foreordained, 
fit,  and  logical  editor.  So,  a  committee  of  the  patriotic 
Georgia  citizens  who  had  subscribed  the  founding  fund 
of  $100,000  called  upon  Colonel  Telfair  at  his  residence, 
Cedar  Heights,  fearful  lest  the  enterprise  and  the  South 
should  suffer  by  his  possible  refusal. 

The  colonel  received  them  in  his  great  library,  where 
he  spent  most  of  his  days.  The  library  had  descended  to 
him  from  his  father.  It  contained  ten  thousand  volumes, 
some  of  which  had  been  published  as  late  as  the  year 
1861.  When  the  deputation  arrived,  Colonel  Telfair 
was  seated  at  his  massive  white-pine  centre-table,  reading 
Burton's  "Anatomy  of  Melancholy."  He  arose  and 
shook  hands  punctiliously  with  each  member  of  the  com- 


4  Options 

mittee.  If  you  were  familiar  with  The  Rose  of  Dixie  you 
will  remember  the  colonel's  portrait,  which  appeared  in 
it  from  time  to  time.  You  could  not  forget  the  long, 
carefully  brushed  white  hair ;  the  hooked,  high-bridged 
nose,  slightly  twisted  to  the  left ;  the  keen  eyes  under  the 
still  black  eyebrows ;  the  classic  mouth  beneath  the 
drooping  white  mustache,  slightly  frazzled  at  the  ends. 

The  committee  solicitously  offered  him  the  position  of 
managing  editor,  humbly  presenting  an  outline  of  the 
field  that  the  publication  was  designed  to  cover  and  men 
tioning  a  comfortable  salary.  The  colonel's  lands  were 
growing  poorer  each  year  and  were  much  cut  up  by  red 
gullies.  Besides,  the  honor  was  not  one  to  be  refused. 

In  a  forty-minute  speech  of  acceptance,  Colonel  Tel- 
fair  gave  an  outline  of  English  literature  from  Chaucer 
to  Macaulay,  re-fought  the  battle  of  Chanccllorsville, 
and  said  that,  God  helping  him,  he  would  so  conduct 
The  Rose  of  Dixie  that  its  fragrance  and  beauty  would 
permeate  the  entire  world,  hurling  back  into  the  teeth 
of  the  Northern  minions  their  belief  that  no  genius  or 
good  could  exist  in  the  brains  and  hearts  of  the  people 
whose  property  they  had  destroyed  and  whose  rights 
the}*  had  curtailed. 

Offices  for  the  magazine  were  partitioned  off  and  fur 
nished  in  the  second  floor  of  the  First  National  Bank 
building;  and  it  was  for  the  colonel  to  cause  Tlie  Rose  of 
Dixie  to  blossom  and  flourish  or  to  wilt  in  the  balmy  air 
of  the  land  of  flowers. 

The  staff  of  assistants  and  contributors  that  Editor- 


"Tlie  Eose  of  Dixie"  5 

Colonel  Tclfair  drew  about  him  was  a  peach.  It  was  a 
whole  crate  of  Georgia  peaches.  The  first  assistant  edi 
tor,  Tol liver  Lee  Fairfax,  had  had  a  father  killed  dur 
ing  Pickett's  charge.  The  second  assistant,  Keats  Un- 
thank,  was  the  nephew  of  one  of  Morgan's  Raiders.  The 
book  reviewer,  Jackson  Rockingham,  had  been  the  young 
est  soldier  in  the  Confederate  army,  having  appeared  on 
the  field  of  battle  with  a  sword  in  one  hand  and  a  milk- 
bottle  in  the  other.  The  art  editor,  Roncesvalles  Sykes, 
was  a  third  cousin  to  a  nephew  of  Jefferson  Davis.  Miss 
Lavinia  Terhune,  the  colonel's  stenographer  and  type 
writer,  had  an  aunt  who  had  once  been  kissed  by  Stone 
wall  Jackson.  Tommy  Webster,  the  head  office  boy,  got 
his  job  by  having  recited  Father  Ryan's  poems,  complete, 
at  the  commencement  exercises  of  the  Toombs  City  High 
School.  The  girls  who  wrapped  and  addressed  the  mag 
azines  were  members  of  old  Southern  families  in  Reduced 
Circumstances.  The  cashier  was  a  scrub  named  Haw 
kins,  from  Ann  Arbor,  Michigan,  who  had  recommenda 
tions  and  a  bond  from  a  guarantee  company  filed  with 
the  owners.  Even  Georgia  stock  companies  sometimes 
realize  that  it  takes  live  ones  to  bury  the  dead. 

Well,  sir,  if  you  believe  me,  The  Rose  of  Dixie  blos 
somed  five  times  before  anybody  heard  of  it  except  the 
people  who  buy  their  hooks  and  eyes  in  Toornbs  City. 
Then  Hawkins  climbed  off  his  stool  and  told  on  'em  to 
the  stock  company.  Even  in  Ann  Arbor  he  had  been 
used  to  having  his  business  propositions  heard  of  at  least 
as  far  away  as  Detroit.  So  an  advertising  manager  was 


6  Options 

engaged  —  Beauregard  Fitzhugh  Banks  —  a  young  man 
in  a  lavender  necktie,  whose  grandfather  had  been  the 
Exalted  High  Pillow-slip  of  the  Kuklux  Klan. 

In  spite  of  which  The  Rose  of  Dixie  kept  coming  out 
every  month.  Although  in  every  issue  it  ran  photos  of 
either  the  Taj  Mahal  or  the  Luxembourg  Gardens,  or 
Carmencita  or  La  Follette,  a  certain  number  of  people 
bought  it  and  subscribed  for  it.  As  a  boom  for  it, 
Editor-Colonel  Telfair  ran  three  different  views  of  An 
drew  Jackson's  old  home,  "The  Hermitage,"  a  full-page 
engraving  of  the  second  battle  of  Manassas,  entitled 
"Lee  to  the  Rear !"  and  a  five-thousand-word  biography 
of  Belle  Boyd  in  the  same  number.  The  subscription  list 
that  month  advanced  118.  Also  there  were  poems  in  the 
same  issue  by  Leonina  Vashti  Haricot  (pen-name),  re 
lated  to  the  Haricots  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina, 
and  Bill  Thompson,  nephew  of  one  of  the  stockholders. 
And  an  article  from  a  special  society  correspondent 
describing  a  tea-party  given  by  the  swell  Boston  and 
English  set,  where  a  lot  of  tea  was  spilled  overboard  by 
some  of  the  guests  masquerading  as  Indians. 

One  day  a  person  whose  breath  would  easily  cloud  a 
mirror,  he  was  so  much  alive,  entered  the  office  of  The 
Rose  of  Dixie.  He  was  a  man  about  the  size  of  a  real- 
estate  agent,  with  a  self-tied  tie  and  a  manner  that  he 
must  have  borrowed  conjointly  from  W.  J.  Bryan,  Hack- 
ensehmidt,  and  Hetty  Green.  He  was  shown  into  the 
editor-colonoPs  pons  asinorum.  Colonel  Telfair  rose 
and  began  a  Prince  Albert  bow. 


"The  Rose  of  Dixie3'  7 

"I'm  Thacker,"  said  the  intruder,  taking  the  editor's 
chair — k*T.  T.  Thacker,  of  New  York." 

He  dribbled  hastily  upon  the  colonel's  desk  sonv 
cards,  a  bulk  manila  envelope,  and  a  letter  from  the 
owners  of  The  Hose  of  Dixie.  This  letter  introduced 
Mr.  Thacker,  and  politely  requested  Colonel  Telfair  to 
give  him  a  conference  and  whatever  information  about 
the  magazine  he  might  desire. 

"I've  been  corresponding  with  the  secretary  of  the 
magazine  owners  for  some  time,"  said  Thacker,  briskly. 
"I'm  a  practical  magazine  man  myself,  and  a  circulation 
booster  as  good  as  any,  if  I  do  say  it.  I'll  guarantee  an 
increase  of  anywhere  from  ten  thousand  to  a  hundred 
thousand  a  year  for  any  publication  that  isn't  printed  in 
a  dead  language.  I've  had  my  eye  on  The  Rose  of  Dixie 
ever  since  it  started.  I  know  every  end  of  the  business 
from  editing  to  setting  up  the  classified  ads.  Now,  I've 
come  down  here  to  put  a  good  bunch  of  money  in  the 
magazine,  if  I  can  sec  my  way  clear.  It  ought  to  be  made 
to  pay.  The  secretary  tells  me  it's  losing  money.  I  don't 
see  why  a  magazine  in  the  South,  if  it's  properly  handled, 
shouldn't  get  a  good  circulation  in  the  North,  too." 

Colonel  Telfair  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  polished 
his  gold-rimmed  glasses. 

"Mr.  Thacker,"  said  he,  courteously  but  firmly,  "The 
Rose  of  Dixie  is  a  publication  devoted  to  the  fostering 
and  the  voicing  of  Southern  genius.  Its  watchword, 
which  you  may  have  seen  on  the  cover,  is  *0f,  For,  and 
By  the  South.'" 


8  Options 

"But  you  wouldn't  object  to  a  Northern  circulation, 
would  you?"  asked  Thackcr. 

"I  suppose,"  said  the  editor-colonel,  "that  it  is  cus 
tomary  to  open  the  circulation  lists  to  all.  I  do  not 
know.  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  business  affairs  of 
the  magazine.  I  was  called  upon  to  assume  editorial 
control  of  it,  and  I  have  devoted  to  its  conduct  such 
poor  literary  talents  as  I  may  possess  and  whatever 
store  of  erudition  I  may  have  acquired." 

"Sure,"  said  Thacker.  "But  a  dollar  is  a  dollar  any 
where,  North,  South,  or  West  —  whether  j'ou're  buying 
codfish,  goober  peas,  or  Rocky  Ford  cantaloupes.  Now, 
I've  been  looking  over  your  November  number.  I  see 
one  here  on  your  desk.  You  don't  mind  running  over  it 
with  me? 

"Well,  your  leading  article  is  all  right.  A  good  write- 
up  of  the  cotton-belt  with  plenty  of  photographs  is  a 
winner  any  time.  New  York  is  always  interested  in  the 
cotton  crop.  And  this  sensational  account  of  the  Hat- 
field-McCoy,  feud,  by  a  schoolmate  of  a  niece  of  the  Gov 
ernor  of  Kentucky,  isn't  such  a  bad  idea.  It  happened 
so  long  ago  that  most  people  have  forgotten  it.  Now, 
here's  a  poem  three  pages  long  called  'The  Tyrant's 
Foot,'  by  Lorella  Lascelles.  I've  pawed  around  a  good 
deal  over  manuscripts,  but  I  never  saw  her  name  on  a 
rejection  slip." 

"Miss  Lascelles,"  said  the  editor,  "is  one  of  our  most 
widely  recognized  Southern  poetesses.  She  is  closely  re 
lated  to  the  Alabama  Lascelles  family,  and  made  with  her 


"The  Rose  of  Dixie"  9 

own  hands  the  silken  Confederate  banner  that  was  pre 
sented  to  the  governor  of  that  state  at  his  inauguration." 

"But  why,"  persisted  Thacker,  "is  the  poem  illus 
trated  with  a  view  of  the  M.  &  O.  Railroad  freight  depot 
at  Tuscaloosa?" 

"The  illustration,"  said  the  colonel,  with  dignity, 
"shows  a  corner  of  the  fence  surrounding  the  old  home 
stead  where  Miss  Lascelles  was  born." 

"All  right,"  said  Thacker.  "I  read  the  poem,  but  I 
couldn't  tell  whether  it  was  about  the  depot  or  the  battle 
of  Bull  Run.  Now,  here's  a  short  story  called  'Rosie's 
Temptation,'  by  Fosdyke  Piggott.  It's  rotten.  What 
is  a  Piggott,  anyway?" 

"Mr.  Piggott,"  said  the  editor,  "is  a  brother  of  the 
principal  stockholder  of  the  magazine." 

"All's  right  with  the  world  —  Piggott  passes,"  said 
Thacker.  "Well,  this  article  on  Arctic  exploration  and 
the  one  on  tarpon  fishing  might  go.  But  how  about  this 
write-up  of  the  Atlanta,  New  Orleans,  Nashville,  and 
Savannah  breweries?  It  seems  to  consist  mainly  of 
statistics  about  their  output  and  the  quality  of  their 
beer.  What's  the  chip  over  the  bug?" 

"If  I  understand  your  figurative  language,"  answered 
Colonel  Telfair,  "it  is  this :  the  article  you  refer  to  was 
Landed  to  me  by  the  owners  of  the  magazine  with  instruc 
tions  to  publish  it.  The  literary  quality  of  it  did  not 
appeal  to  me.  But,  in  a  measure,  I  feel  impelled  to  con 
form,  in  certain  matters,  to  the  wishes  of  the  gentlemen 
who  are  interested  in  the  financial  side  of  The  Rose" 


10  Options 

"I  see,"  said  Thacker.  "Next  we  have  two  pages  of 
selections  from  *Lalla  Rookh,'  by  Thomas  Moore.  Now, 
what  Federal  prison  did  Moore  escape  from,  or  what's  the 
name  of  the  F.F.V.  family  that  he  carries  as  a  handicap  ?" 

"Moore  was  an  Irish  poet  who  died  in  1852,"  said 
Colonel  Telfair,  pityingly.  "He  is  a  classic.  I  have 
been  thinking  of  reprinting  his  translation  of  Anacreon 
serially  in  the  magazine." 

"Look  out  for  the  copyright  laws,"  said  Thacker,  flip 
pantly.  "Who's  Bessie  Belleclair,  who  contributes  the 
essay  on  the  newly  completed  water- works  plant  in 
Milfedgeville?" 

"The  name,  sir,"  said  Colonel  Telfair,  "is  the  nom  de 
guerre  of  Miss  Elvira  Simpkins.  I  have  not  the  honor 
of  knowing  the  lady ;  but  her  contribution  was  sent  us  by 
Congressman  Browcr,  of  her  native  state.  Congressman 
Brewer's  mother  was  related  to  the  Polks  of  Tennessee." 

"Now,  see  here,  Colonel,"  said  Thacker,  throwing 
down  the  magazine,  "this  won't  do.  You  can't  success 
fully  run  a  magazine  for  one  particular  section  of  the 
country.  You've  got  to  make  a  universal  appeal.  Look 
how  the  Northern  publications  have  catered  to  the  Soutli 
and  encouraged  the  Southern  writers.  And  you've  got 
to  go  far  and  wide  for  your  contributors.  You've  got 
to  buy  stuff  according  to  its  quality,  without  any  regard 
to  the  pedigroe  of  the  author.  Now,  I'll  bet  a  quart  of 
ink  that  this  Southern  parlor  organ  you've  been  running 
has  never  played  a  note  that  originated  above  Mason  & 
Hamlin's  line.  Am  I  right ?" 


"The  Rose  of  Dixie"  11 

"I  have  carefully  and  conscientiously  rejected  all 
contributions  from  that  section  of  the  country  —  if  I 
understand  your  figurative  language  aright,"  replied  the 
colonel. 

"All  right.     Now,  I'll  show  you  something." 

Thacker  reached  for  his  thick  manila  envelope  and 
dumped  a  mass  of  typewritten  manuscript  on  the  editor's 
desk. 

"Here's  some  truck,"  said  he,  "that  I  paid  cash  for, 
and  brought  along  with  me." 

One  by  one  he  folded  back  the  manuscripts  and  showed 
their  first  pages  to  the  colonel. 

"Here  are  four  short  stories  by  four  of  the  highest 
priced  authors  in  the  United  States  —  three  of  'cm  living 
in  New  York,  and  one  commuting.  There's  a  special 
article  on  Vienna-bred  society  by  Tom  Vampson.  Here's 
an  Italian  serial  by  Captain  Jack  —  no  —  it's  the  other 
Crawford.  Here  are  three  separate  exposes  of  city  gov 
ernments  by  Sniffings,  and  here's  a  dandy  entitled  'What 
Women  Carry  in  Dress-Suit  Cases' — a  Chicago  news 
paper  woman  hired  herself  out  for  five  years  as  a  lady's 
maid  to  get  that  information.  And  here's  a  Synopsis  of 
Preceding  Chapters  of  Hall  Caine's  new  serial  to  appear 
next  June.  And  here's  a  couple  of  pounds  of  vers  de 
societe  that  I  got  at  a  rate  from  the  clever  magazines. 
That's  the  stuff  that  people  everywhere  want.  And  now 
here's  a  write-up  with  photographs  at  the  ages  of  four, 
twelve,  twenty-two,  and  thirty  of  George  B.  McClellan. 
It's  a  prognostication.  He's  bound  to  be  elected  Mayor 


12  Options 

of  New  York.  It'll  make  a  big  hit  all  over  the  country. 
He " 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Colonel  Telfair,  stiffening 
in  his  chair.  "What  was  the  name?" 

"Oh,  I  see,"  said  Thacker,  with  half  a  grin.  "Yes, 
he's  a  son  of  the  General.  We'll  pass  that  manuscript  up. 
But,  if  you'll  excuse  me,  Colonel,  it's  a  magazine  we're 
trying  to  make  go  off  —  not  the  first  gun  at  Fort  Sumter. 
Now,  here's  a  thing  that's  bound  to  get  next  to  you. 
It's  an  original  poem  by  James  Whitcomb  Riley.  J. 
W.  himself.  You  know  what  that  means  to  a  magazine. 
I  won't  tell  you  what  I  had  to  pay  for  that  poem ;  but 
I'll  tell  you  this  —  Riley  can  make  more  money  writing 
with  a  fountain-pen  than  you  or  I  can  with  one  that  lets 
the  ink  run.  I'll  read  you  the  last  two  stanzas : 

"'Pa  lays  around  'n'  loafs  all  day, 

'N'  reads  and  makes  us  leave  him  be. 
He  lets  me  do  just  like  I  please, 

'N'  when  I'm  bad  he  laughs  at  me, 
'N'  when  I  holler  loud  'n'  say 

Bad  words  'n'  then  begin  to  tease 
The  cat,  'n'  pa  just  smiles,  ma's  mad 
'N'  gives  me  Jesse  crost  her  knees. 
I  always  wondered  why  that  wuz  — 
I  guess  it's  cause 
Pa  never  does. 

«**'N'  after  all  the  lights  are  out 

I'm  sorry  'bout  it;  so  I  creep 
Out  of  my  trundle  bed  to  ma's 

'N'  say  I  love  her  a  whole  heap, 
'N'  kiss  her,  'n'  I  hug  her  tight 


"The  Hose  of  Dixie"  13 

'N'  it's  loo  dark  to  see  her  eyes, 
But  every  time  I  do  I  know 
She  cries  'n'  cries  'n'  cries  'n'  cries. 
I  always  wondered  why  that  wuz  — 
I  guess  it's  cause 
Pa  never  does.' 

"That's  the  stuff,"  continued  Thacker.  "What  do 
you  think  of  that?" 

"I  am  not  unfamiliar  with  the  works  of  Mr.  Riley," 
said  the  colonel,  deliberately.  "I  believe  he  lives  in  In 
diana.  For  the  last  ten  years  I  have  been  somewhat  of  a 
literary  recluse,  and  am  familiar  with  nearly  all  the  books 
in  the  Cedar  Heights  library.  I  am  also  of  the  opinion 
that  a  magazine  should  contain  a  certain  amount  of 
poetry.  Many  of  the  sweetest  singers  of  the  South  have 
already  contributed  to  the  pages  of  The  Rose  of  Dixie. 
I,  myself,  have  thought  of  translating  from  the  original 
for  publication  in  its  pages  the  works  of  the  great 
Italian  poet  Tasso.  Have  you  ever  drunk  from  the 
fountain  of  this  immortal  poet's  lines,  Mr.  Thacker?" 

"Not  even  a  demi-Tasso,"  said  Thacker.  "Now,  let's 
come  to  the  point,  Colonel  Tclfair.  I've  already  invested 
some  money  in  this  as  a  flyer.  That  bunch  of  manu 
scripts  cost  me  $4,000.  My  object  was  to  try  a  number 
of  them  in  the  next  issue  —  I  believe  you  make  up  less 
than  a  month  ahead  —  and  see  what  effect  it  has  on  the 
circulation.  I  believe  that  by  printing  the  best  stuff 
we  can  get  in  the  North,  South,  East,  or  West  we  can 
make  the  magazine  go.  You  have  there  the  letter  from 
the  owning  company  asking  you  to  co-operate  with  me 


14  Options 

in  the  plan.  Let's  chuck  out  some  of  this  slush  that 
you've  been  publishing  just  because  the  writers  are  re 
lated  to  the  Skoopdoodles  of  Skoopdoodle  County. 
Are  you  with  me?" 

"As  long  as  I  continue  to  be  the  editor  of  The  Rose," 
said  Colonel  Telfair,  with  dignity,  "I  shall  be  its  editor. 
But  I  desire  also  to  conform  to  the  wishes  of  its  owners 
if  I  can  do  so  conscientiously." 

"That's  the  talk,"  said  Thacker,  briskly.  "Now,  how 
much  of  this  stuff  I've  brought  can  we  get  into  the  Jan 
uary  number?  We  want  to  begin  right  away." 

"There  is  yet  space  in  the  January  number,"  said  the 
editor,  "for  about  eight  thousand  words,  roughly  esti 
mated." 

"Great !"  said  Thacker.  "It  isn't  much,  but  it'll  give 
the  readers  some  change  from  goobers,  governors,  and 
Ojettysbarg.  I'll  leave  the  selection  of  the  stuff  I 
brought  to  fill  the  space  to  you,  as  it's  all  good.  I've 
got  to  ran  back  to  New  York,  and  I'll  be  down  again 
in  a  couple  of  weeks." 

Colonel  Telfair  slowly  swung  his  eye-glasses  by  their 
broad,  black  ribbon. 

"The  space  in  the  January  number  that  I  referred  to," 
said  lie,  «oeasuredly,  "has  been  held  open  purposely, 
pending  a  decision  that  I  have  not  yet  made.  A  short 
time  ago  a  contribution  was  submitted  to  The  Rose  of 
Dixie  that  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  literary  efforts 
that  has  ever  come  under  my  observation.  None  but  a 
master  mind  and  talent  could  have  produced  it.  It 


"The  Ease  of  Dixie"  15 

•would  about  fill  the  space  that  I  have  reserved  for  its 
possible  use." 

Thacker  looked  anxious. 

"What  kind  of  stuff  is  it?"  he  asked.  "Eight  thou 
sand  words  sounds  suspicious.  The  oldest  families  must 
have  been  collaborating.  Is  there  going  to  be  another 
secession?" 

"The  author  of  the  article,"  continued  the  colonel, 
ignoring  Thacker's  allusions,  "is  a  writer  of  some  reputa 
tion,  lie  has  also  distinguished  himself  in  other  ways. 
I  do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  reveal  to  you  his  name  —  at 
least  not  until  I  have  decided  whether  or  not  to  accept 
his  contribution." 

"Well,"  said  Thacker,  nervously,  "is  it  a  continued 
story,  or  an  account  of  the  unveiling  of  the  new  town 
pump  in  Whitmire,  South  Carolina,  or  a  revised  list  of 
General  Lee's  body-servants,  or  what?" 

"You  are  disposed  to  be  facetious,"  said  Colonel  Tel- 
fair,  calmly.  "The  article  is  from  the  pen  of  a  thinker, 
a  philosopher,  a  lover  of  mankind,  a  student,  and  a 
rhetorician  of  high  degree." 

"It  must  have  been  written  by  a  syndicate,"  said 
Thacker.  "But,  honestly,  Colonel,  you  want  to  go  slow. 
I  don't  know  of  any  eight-thousand-word  single  doses 
of  written  matter  that  are  read  by  anybody  these  days, 
except  Supreme  Court  briefs  and  reports  of  murder 
trials.  You  haven't  by  any  accident  gotten  hold  of  a 
copy  of  one  of  Daniel  Webster's  speeches,  have  you?" 

Colonel  Telfair  swung  a  little  in  his  chair  and  looked 


16  Options 

steadily  from  under  his  bushy  eyebrows  at  the  magazine 
promoter. 

"Mr.  Thacker,"  he  said,  gravely,  "I  am  willing  to  se 
gregate  the  somewhat  crude  expression  of  your  sense  of 
humor  from  the  solicitude  that  your  business  investments 
undoubtedly  have  conferred  upon  you.  But  I  must  ask 
you  to  cease  your  jibes  and  derogatory  comments  upon 
the  South  and  the  Southern  people.  They,  sir,  will  not 
be  tolerated  in  the  office  of  The  Rose  of  Dixie  for  one  mo 
ment.  And  before  you  proceed  with  more  of  your  covert 
insinuations  that  I,  the  editor  of  this  magazine,  am  not  a 
competent  judge  of  the  merits  of  the  matter  submitted 
to  its  consideration,  I  beg  that  you  will  first  present  some 
evidence  or  proof  that  you  are  my  superior  in  any  way, 
shape,  or  form  relative  to  the  question  in  hand." 

"Oh,  come,  Colonel,"  said  Thacker,  good-naturedly. 
"I  didn't  do  anything  like  that  to  you.  It  sounds  like 
an  indictment  by  the  fourth  assistant  attorney-general. 
Let's  get  back  to  business.  What's  this  8,000  to  1 
shot  about?" 

"The  article,"  said  Colonel  Telfair,  acknowledging  the 
apology  by  a  slight  bow,  "covers  a  wide  area  of  knowl 
edge.  It  takes  up  theories  and  questions  that  have 
puzzled  the  world  for  centuries,  and  disposes  of  them 
logically  and  concisely.  One  by  one  it  holds  up  to  view 
the  evils  of  the  world,  points  out  the  way  of  eradicating 
them,  and  then  conscientiously  and  in  detail  commends 
the  good.  There  is  hardly  a  phase  of  human  life  that 
it  does  not  discuss  wisely,  calmly,  and  equitably.  The 


"The  Eose  of  Dixie"  17 

great  policies  of  governments,  the  duties  of  private  citi 
zens,  the  obligations  of  home  life,  law,  ethics,  morality 
—  all  these  important  subjects  are  handled  with  a  calm 
wisdom  and  confidence  that  I  must  confess  has  captured 
my  admiration." 

"It  must  be  a  cracker  jack,"  said  Thackcr,  impressed. 

"It  is  a  great  contribution  to  the  world's  wisdom," 
said  the  colonel.  "The  only  doubt  remaining  in  my 
mind  as  to  the  tremendous  advantage  it  would  be  to  us  to 
give  it  publication  in  The  Rose  of  Dixie  is  that  I  have  not 
yet  sufficient  information  about  the  author  to  give  his 
work  publicity  in  our  magazine." 

"I  thought  you  said  he  is  a  distinguished  man,"  said 
Thacker. 

"He  is,"  replied  the  colonel,  "both  in  literary  and  in 
other  more  diversified  and  extraneous  fields.  But  I  am 
extremely  careful  about  the  matter  that  I  accept  for 
publication.  My  contributors  are  people  of  unquestion 
able  repute  and  connections,  which  fact  can  be  verified 
at  any  time.  As  I  said,  I  am  holding  this  article  until 
I  can  acquire  more  information  about  its  author.  I 
do  not  know  whether  I  will  publish  it  or  not.  If  I  decide 
against  it,  I  shall  be  much  pleased,  Mr.  Thacker,  to 
substitute  the  matter  that  you  are  leaving  with  me  in 
its  place." 

Thacker  was  somewhat  at  sea. 

"I  don't  seem  to  gather,"  said  he,  "much  about  the 
gist  of  this  inspired  piece  of  literature.  It  sounds  more 
like  a  dark  horse  than  Pegasus  to  me." 


18  Options 

"It  is  a  human  document,"  said  the  colonel-editor, 
confidently,  "from  a  man  of  great  accomplishments  who, 
in  my  opinion,  has  obtained  a  stronger  grasp  on  the  world 
and  its  outcomes  than  that  of  any  man  living  to-day." 

Thacker  rose  to  his  feet  excitedly. 

"Say!"  he  said.  "It  isn't  possible  that  you've  cor 
nered  John  D.  Rockefeller's  memoirs,  is  it?  Don't  tell 
me  that  all  at  once." 

"No,  sir,"  said  Colonel  Telfair.  "I  am  speaking  of 
mentality  and  literature,  not  of  the  less  worthy  intri 
cacies  of  trade." 

"Well,  what's  the  trouble  about  running  the  article," 
asked  Thacker,  a  little  impatiently,  "if  the  man's  well 
known  and  has  got  the  stuff?" 

Colonel  Telfair  sighed. 

"Mr.  Thacker,"  said  he,  "for  once  I  have  been  tempted. 
Nothing  has  yet  appeared  in  The  Rose  of  Dixie  that  has 
not  been  from  the  pen  of  one  of  its  sons  or  daughters.  I 
know  little  about  the  author  of  this  article  except  that  he 
has  acquired  prominence  in  a  section  of  the  country  that 
has  always  been  inimical  to  my  heart  and  mind.  But  I 
recognize  his  genius ;  and,  as  I  have  told  you,  I  have  in 
stituted  an  investigation  of  his  personality.  Perhaps  it 
will  be  futile.  But  I  shall  pursue  the  inquiry.  Until 
that  is  finished,  I  must  leave  open  the  question  of  filling 
the  vacant  space  in  our  January  number." 

Thacker  arose  to  leave. 

"All  right,  Colonel,"  he  said,  as  cordially  as  he  could. 
"You  use  your  own  judgment.  If  you've  really  got  a 


"The  Rose  of  Dixie"  19 

scoop  or  something  that  will  make  'cm  sit  up,  run  it  in 
stead  of  my  stuff.  I'll  drop  in  again  in  about  two 
weeks.  Good  luck !" 

Colonel  Telfair  and  the  magazine  promoter  shook 
hands. 

Returning  a  fortnight  later,  Thacker  dropped  off  a 
very  rocky  Pullman  at  Toombs  City.  He  found  the 
January  number  of  the  magazine  made  up  and  the  forms 
closed. 

The  vacant  space  that  had  been  yawning  for  type  was 
filled  by  an  article  that  was  headed  thus: 

SECOND    MESSAGE    TO    CONGRESS 

Written  for 
THE  ROSE  OF  DIXIE 

BY 

A  Member  of  the  Well-known 

BULLOCH  FAMILY,  OF  GEORGIA 

T.  ROOSEVELT 


THE  THIRD  INGREDIENT 

THE  (so-called)  Vallambrosa  Apartment-House  is  not 
an  apartment-house.  It  is  composed  of  two  old-fash 
ioned,  brownstone-front  residences  welded  into  one.  The 
parlor  floor  of  one  side  is  gay  with  the  wraps  and  head 
gear  of  a  modiste ;  the  other  is  lugubrious  with  the  so 
phistical  promises  and  grisly  display  of  a  painless  den 
tist.  You  may  have  a  room  there  for  two  dollars  a  week 
or  you  may  have  one  for  twenty  dollars.  Among:  the 
Vallambrosa's  roomers  are  stenographers,  musicians, 
brokers,  shopgirls,  space-rate  writers,  art  students,  wire- 
tappers,  and  other  people  who  lean  far  over  the  banister- 
rail  when  the  door-bell  rings. 

This  treatise  shall  have  to  do  with  but  two  of  the  Val- 
lambrosians  —  though  meaning  no  disrespect  to  the 
others. 

At  six  o'clock  one  afternoon  Hetty  Pepper  came  back 
to  her  third-floor  rear  $3.50  room  in  the  Vallambrosa 
with  her  nose  and  chin  more  sharply  pointed  than  usual. 
To  be  discharged  from  the  department  store  where  you 
have  been  working  four  years,  and  with  only  fifteen 
cents  in  your  purse,  does  have  a  tendency  to  make  your 
features  appear  more  finely  chiselled. 

And  now  for  Hetty's  thumb-nail  biography  while  she 
climbs  the  two  flights  of  stairs. 

She  walked  into  the  Biggest  Store  one  morning  four 

20 


The  Third  Ingredient  21 

years  before,  with  seventy -five  other  girls,  applying  for  a 
job  behind  the  waist  department  counter.  The  phalanx 
of  wage-earners  formed  a  bewildering  scene  of  beauty, 
carrying  a  total  mass  of  blond  hair  sufficient  to  have 
justified  the  horseback  gallops  of  a  hundred  Lady 
Godivas. 

The  capable,  cool-eyed  impersonal,  young,  bald- 
headed  man,  whose  task  it  was  to  engage  six  of  the  con 
testants,  was  aware  of  a  feeling  of  suffocation  as  if  he 
were  drowning  in  a  sea  of  f  rangipanni,  while  white  clouds, 
hand-embroidered,  floated  about  him.  And  then  a  sail 
hove  in  sight.  Hetty  Pepper,  homely  of  countenance, 
with  small,  contemptuous,  green  eyes  and  chocolate- 
colored  hair,  dressed  in  a  suit  of  plain  burlap  and  a  com 
mon-sense  hat,  stood  before  him  with  every  one  of  her 
twenty-nine  years  of  life  unmistakably  in  sight. 

"You're  on  !"  shouted  the  bald-headed  }7oung  man,  and 
was  saved.  And  that  is  how  Hetty  came  to  be  employed 
in  the  Biggest  Store.  The  story  of  her  rise  to  an  eight- 
dollar-a-week  salary  is  the  combined  stories  of  Hercules, 
Joan  of  Arc,  Una,  Job,  and  Little-Red-Riding-Hood. 
You  shall  not  learn  from  me  the  salary  that  was  paid  her 
as  a  beginner.  There  is  a  sentiment  growing  about  such 
things,  and  I  want  no  millionaire  store-proprietors 
climbing  the  fire-escape  of  my  tenement-house  to  throw 
dynamite  bombs  into  my  skylight  boudoir. 

The  story  of  Hetty's  discharge  from  the  Biggest  Store 
is  so  nearly  a  repetition  of  her  engagement  as  to  be 
monotonous. 


22  Options 

In  each  department  of  the  store  there  is  an  omniscient, 
omnipresent,  and  omnivorous  person  carrying  always  a 
mileage  book  and  a  red  necktie,  and  referred  to  as  a 
"buyer."  The  destinies  of  the  girls  in  his  department 
who  live  on  (see  Bureau  of  Victual  Statistics) — so 
much  per  week  are  in  his  hands. 

This  particular  buyer  was  a  capable,  cool-eyed,  im 
personal,  young,  bald-headed  man.  As  he  walked  along 
the  aisles  of  his  department  he  seemed  to  be  sailing  on  a 
sea  of  frangipanni,  while  white  clouds,  machine-embroid 
ered,  floated  around  him.  Too  many  sweets  bring  sur 
feit.  He  looked  upon  Hetty  Pepper's  homely  counte 
nance,  emerald  eyes,  and  chocolate-colored  hair  as  a 
welcome  oasis  of  green  in  a  desert  of  cloying  beauty.  In 
a  quiet  angle  of  a  counter  he  pinched  her  arm  kindly, 
three  inches  above  the  elbow.  She  slapped  him  three  feet 
away  with  one  good  blow  of  her  muscular  and  not  espe 
cially  lily-white  right.  So,  now  you  know  why  Hetty 
Pepper  came  to  leave  the  Biggest  Store  at  thirty  min 
utes'  notice,  with  one  dime  and  a  nickel  in  her  purse. 

This  morning's  quotations  list  the  price  of  rib  beef  at 
six  cents  per  (butcher's)  pound.  But  on  the  day  that 
Hetty  was  "released"  by  the  B.  S.  the  price  was  seven 
and  one  half  cents.  That  fact  is  what  makes  this  story 
possible.  Otherwise,  the  extra  four  cents  would  have 

But  the  plot  of  nearly  all  the  good  stories  in  the  world 
is  concerned  with  shorts  who  were  unable  to  cover;  so 
you  can  find  no  fault  with  this  one. 

Hetty  mounted  with  her  rib  beef  to  her  $3.50  third- 


The  Third  Ingredient  23 

floor  back.  One  hot,  savory  beef-stew  for  supper,  a 
night's  good  sleep,  and  she  would  be  fit  in  the  morning  to 
apply  again  for  the  tasks  of  Hercules,  Joan  of  Arc,  Una, 
Job,  and  Little-Red-Riding-Hood. 

In  her  room  she  got  the  graniteware  stew-pan  out  of 
the  2  x  4-foot  china  —  er  —  I  mean  earthenware  closet, 
and  began  to  dig  down  in  a  rat's-nest  of  paper  bags  for 
the  potatoes  and  onions.  She  came  out  with  her  nose 
and  chin  just  a  little  sharper  pointed. 

There  was  neither  a  potato  nor  an  onion.  Now,  what 
kind  of  a  beef-stew  can  you  make  out  of  simply  beef? 
You  can  make  oyster-soup  without  oysters,  turtle-soup 
without  turtles,  coffee-cake  without  coffee,  but  you  can't 
make  beef-stew  without  potatoes  and  onions. 

But  rib  beef  alone,  in  an  emergency,  can  make  an 
ordinary  pine  door  look  like  a  wrought-iron  gambling- 
house  portal  to  the  wolf.  With  salt  and  pepper  and  a 
tablespoonful  of  flour  (first  well  stirred  in  a  little  cold 
water)  'twill  serve — 'tis  not  so  deep  as  a  lobster  a  la 
Newburgh,  nor  so  wide  as  a  church  festival  doughnut; 
but  'twill  serve. 

Hetty  took  her  stew-pan  to  the  rear  of  the  third-floor 
hall.  According  to  the  advertisements  of  the  Vallam- 
brosa  there  was  running  water  to  be  found  there.  Be 
tween  you  and  me  and  the  water-meter,  it  only  ambled  or 
walked  through  the  faucets ;  but  technicalities  have  no 
place  here.  There  was  also  a  sink  where  housekeeping 
roomers  often  met  to  dump  their  coffee  grounds  and 
glare  at  one  another's  kimonos. 


24  Options 

At  this  sink  Hetty  found  a  girl  with  heavy,  gold-brown, 
artistic  hair  and  plaintive  eyes,  washing  two  large 
"Irish"  potatoes.  Hetty  knew  the  Vallambrosa  as  well 
as  any  one  not  owning  "double  hextra-magnifying  eyes" 
could  compass  its  mysteries.  The  kimonos  were  her  en 
cyclopaedia,  her  "Who's  What?"  her  clearing-house  of 
news,  of  goers  and  comers.  From  a  rose-pink  kimono 
edged  with  Nile  green  she  had  learned  that  the  girl  with 
the  potatoes  was  a  miniature-painter  living  in  a  kind  of 
attic  —  or  "studio,"  as  they  prefer  to  call  it  —  on  the 
top  floor.  Hetty  was  not  certain  in  her  mind  what  a 
miniature  was ;  but  it  certainly  wasn't  a  house ;  because 
house-painters,  although  they  wear  splashy  overalls  and 
poke  ladders  in  your  face  on  the  street,  are  known  to  in 
dulge  in  a  riotous  profusion  of  food  at  home. 

The  potato  girl  was  quite  slim  and  small,  and  handled 
her  potatoes  as  an  old  bachelor  uncle  handles  a  baby  who 
is  cutting  teeth.  She  had  a  dull  shoemaker's  knife  in  her 
right  hand,  and  she  had  begun  to  peel  one  of  the  pn '  :-.  roes 
with  it. 

Hetty  addressed  her  in  the  punctiliously  formal  tone  of 
one  who  intends  to  be  cheerfully  familiar  with  you  in  the 
second  round. 

"Beg  pardon,"  she  said,  "for  butting  into  what's  not 
my  business,  but  if  you  peel  them  potatoes  you  lose  out. 
They're  new  Bermudas.  You  want  to  scrape  'em.  Lem- 
me  show  you." 

She  took  a  potato  and  the  knife,  and  began  to  dem 
onstrate. 


The  Third  Ingredient  25 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  breathed  the  artist.  "I  didn't  know. 
And  I  did  hate  to  see  the  thick  peeling  go  ;  it  seemed  such 
a  waste.  But  I  thought  they  always  had  to  be  peeled. 
When  you've  got  only  potatoes  to  eat,  the  peelings  count, 
you  know." 

"Say,  kid,"  said  Hetty,  staying  her  knife,  "you  ain't 
up  against  it,  too,  are  you?" 

The  miniature  artist  smiled  starvedly. 

"I  suppose  I  am.  Art  —  or,  at  least,  the  way  I  in 
terpret  it  —  doesn't  seem  to  be  much  in  demand.  I 
have  only  these  potatoes  for  my  dinner.  But  they 
aren't  so  bad  boiled  and  hot,  with  a  little  butter  and 
salt." 

"Child,"  said  Hetty,  letting  a  brief  smile  soften  her 
rigid  features,  "Fate  has  sent  me  and  you  together.  I've 
had  it  handed  to  me  in  the  neck,  too ;  but  I've  got 
a  chunk  of  meat  in  my  room  as  big  as  a  lap-dog.  And 
I've  done  everything  to  get  potatoes  except  pray  for  'em. 
Let's  me  and  you  bunch  our  commissary  departments  and 
make  a  stew  of  'em.  We'll  cook  it  in  my  room.  If  we 
only  had  an  onion  to  go  in  it !  Say,  kid,  you  haven't  got 
a  couple  of  pennies  that've  slipped  down  into  the  lining 
of  your  last  winter's  sealskin,  have  you?  I  could  step 
down  to  the  corner  and  get  one  at  old  Giuseppe's  stand. 
A  stew  without  an  onion  is  worse'n  a  matinee  without 
candy." 

"You  may  call  me  Cecilia,"  said  the  artist.  "No ;  I 
spent  my  last  penny  three  days  ago." 

"Then  we'll  have  to  cut  the  onion  out  instead  of  slicing 


26  Options 

it  in,"  said  Hetty.  "I'd  ask  the  janitress  for  one,  but  I 
don't  want  'em  hep  just  yet  to  the  fact  that  I'm  pounding 
the  asphalt  for  another  job.  But  I  wish  we  did  have  an 
onion." 

In  the  shop-girl's  room  the  two  began  to  prepare  their 
supper.  Cecilia's  part  was  to  sit  on  the  couch  helplessly 
and  beg  to  be  allowed  to  do  something,  in  the  voice  of  a 
cooing  ring-dove.  Hetty  prepared  the  rib  beef,  putting 
it  in  cold  salted  water  in  the  stew-pan  and  setting  it  on 
the  one-burner  gas-stove. 

"I  wish  we  had  an  onion,"  said  Hetty,  as  she  scraped 
the  two  potatoes. 

On  the  wall  opposite  the  couch  was  pinned  a  flaming, 
gorgeous  advertising  picture  of  one  of  the  new  ferry 
boats  of  the  P.  U.  F.  F.  Railroad  that  had  been  built  to 
cut  down  the  time  between  Los  Angeles  and  New  York 
City  one  eighth  of  a  minute. 

Hetty,  turning  her  head  during  her  continuous  mono 
logue,  saw  tears  running  from  her  guest's  C3res  as  she 
gazed  on  the  idealized  presentment  of  the  speeding,  foam- 
girdled  transport. 

"Why,  say,  Cecilia,  kid,"  said  Hetty,  poising  her  knife, 
"is  it  as  bad  art  as  that?  I  ain't  a  critic,  but  I  thought 
it  kind  of  brightened  up  the  room.  Of  course,  a  mani 
cure-painter  could  tell  it  was  a  bum  picture  in  a  minute. 
I'll  take  it  down  if  you  say  so.  I  wish  to  the  holy  Saint 
Potluck  we  had  an  onion." 

But  the  miniature  miniature-painter  had  tumbled 
down,  sobbing,  with  her  nose  indenting  the  hard-woven 


The  Third  Ingredient  27 

drapery  of  the  coach.  Something  was  here  deeper  than 
the  artistic  temperament  offended  at  crude  lithography. 

Hetty  knew.  She  had  accepted  her  role  long  ago. 
How  scant  the  words  with  which  we  try  to  describe  a 
single  quality  of  a  human  being!  When  we  reach  the 
abstract  we  are  lost.  The  nearer  to  Nature  that  the 
babbling  of  our  lips  comes,  the  better  do  we  understand. 
Figuratively  (let  us  say),  some  people  are  Bosoms,  some 
are  Hands,  some  are  Heads,  some  are  Muscles,  some  are 
Feet,  some  are  Backs  for  burdens. 

Hetty  was  a  Shoulder.  Hers  was  a  sharp,  sinewy 
shoulder ;  but  all  her  life  people  had  laid  their  heads  upon 
it,  metaphorically  or  actually,  and  had  left  there  all  or 
half  their  troubles.  Looking  at  Life  anatomically,  which 
is  as  good  a  way  as  any,  she  was  preordained  to  be  a 
Shoulder.  There  were  few  truer  collar-bones  anywhere 
than  hers. 

Hetty  was  only  thirty-three,  and  she  had  not  yet  out 
lived  the  little  pang  that  visited  her  whenever  the  head  of 
youth  and  beauty  leaned  upon  her  for  consolation.  But 
one  glance  in  her  mirror  always  served  as  an  instantane 
ous  pain-killer.  So  she  gave  one  pale  look  into  the 
crinkly  old  looking-glass  on  the  wall  above  the  gas-stove, 
turned  down  the  flame  a  little  lower  from  the  bubbling 
beef  and  potatoes,  went  over  to  the  couch,  and  lifted  Ce 
cilia's  head  to  its  confessional. 

"Go  on  and  tell  me,  honey,"  she  said.  "I  know  now 
that  it  ain't  art  that's  worrying  you.  You  met  him  on 
a  ferry-boat,  didn't  you?  Go  on,  Cecilia,  kid,  and  tell 
your — your  Aunt  Hetty  about  it." 


28  Options 

But  youth  and  melancholy  must  first  spend  the  surplus 
of  sighs  and  tears  that  waft  and  float  the  barque  of 
romance  to  its  harbor  in  the  delectable  isles.  Presently, 
througli  the  stringy  tendons  that  formed  the  bars  of  the 
confessional,  the  penitent  —  or  was  it  the  glorified  com 
municant  of  the  sacred  flame?  —  told  her  story  without 
art  or  illumination. 

"It  was  only  three  days  ago.  I  was  coming  back  on 
the  ferry  from  Jersey  City.  Old  Mr.  Schrum,  an  art 
dealer,  told  me  of  a  rich  man  in  Newark  who  wanted  a 
miniature  of  his  daughter  painted.  I  went  to  see  him 
and  showed  him  some  of  my  work.  When  I  told  him  the 
price  would  be  fifty  dollars  he  laughed  at  me  like  a  hy 
ena.  He  said  an  enlarged  crayon  twenty  times  the  size 
would  cost  him  only  eight  dollars. 

"I  had  just  enough  money  to  buy  my  ferry  ticket  back 
to  New  York.  I  felt  as  if  I  didn't  want  to  live  another 
day.  I  must  have  looked  as  I  felt,  for  I  saw  him  on  the 
row  of  seats  opposite  me,  looking  at  me  as  if  he  under 
stood.  He  was  nice-looking,  but,  oh,  above  everything 
else,  he  looked  kind.  When  one  is  tired  or  unhappy  or 
hopeless,  kindness  counts  more  than  anything  else. 

"When  I  got  so  miserable  that  I  couldn't  fight  against 
it  any  longer,  I  got  up  and  walked  slowly  out  the  rear 
door  of  the  ferry-boat  cabin.  No  one  was  there,  and  I 
slipped  quickly  over  the  rail,  and  dropped  into  the  water. 
Oh,  friend  Hetty,  it  was  cold,  cold ! 

"For  just  one  moment  I  wished  I  was  back  in  the  old 
Vallambrosa,  starving  and  hoping.  And  then  I  got 


The  Third  Ingredient  29 

numb,  and  didn't  care.  And  then  I  felt  that  somebody 
else  was  in  the  water  close  by  rne,  holding  me  up.  He 
had  followed  me,  and  jumped  in  to  save  me. 

"Somebody  threw  a  thing  like  a  big,  white  doughnut  at 
us,  and  he  made  me  put  my  arms  through  the  hole.  Then 
the  ferry-boat  backed,  and  they  pulled  us  on  board.  Oh, 
Hetty,  I  was  so  ashamed  of  my  wickedness  in  trying  to 
drown  myself ;  and,  besides,  my  hair  had  all  tumbled  down 
and  was  sopping  wet,  and  I  was  such  a  sight. 

"And  then  some  rnen  in  blue  clothes  came  around ;  and 
lie  gave  them  his  card,  and  I  heard  him  tell  them  he  had 
seen  me  drop  my  purse  on  the  edge  of  the  boat  outside 
the  rail,  and  in  leaning  over  to  get  it  I  had  fallen  over 
board.  And  then  I  remembered  having  read  in  the  pa-- 
pers  that  people  who  try  to  kill  themselves  are  locked  up 
in  cells  with  people  who  try  to  kill  other  people,  and  I 
was  afraid. 

"But  some  ladies  on  the  boat  took  me  downstairs  to 
the  furnace-room  and  got  me  nearly  dry  and  did  up  my 
hair.  When  the  boat  landed,  he  came  and  put  me  in  a 
cab.  He  was  all  dripping  himself,  but  laughed  as  if  he 
thought  it  was  all  a  joke.  He  begged  me,  but  I  wouldn't 
tell  him  my  name  nor  where  I  lived,  I  was  so  ashamed." 

"You  were  a  fool,  child,"  said  Hetty,  kindly.  "Wait 
till  I  turn  the  light  up  a  bit.  I  wish  to  Heaven  we  had  an 
onion." 

"Then  he  raised  his  hat,"  went  on  Cecilia,  "and  said: 
'Very  well.  But  I'll  find  you,  anyhow.  I'm  going  to 
claim  my  rights  of  salvage.'  Then  he  gave  money  to  the 


30  Options 

cab-driver  and  told  him  to  take  me  where  I  wanted  to  go, 
and  walked  away.  What  is  'salvage,'  Hetty?" 

"The  edge  of  a  piece  of  goods  that  ain't  hemmed,"  said 
the  shop-girl.  "You  must  have  looked  pretty  well 
frazzled  out  to  the  little  hero  boy." 

"It's  been  three  days,"  moaned  the  miniature-painter, 
"and  he  hasn't  found  me  yet." 

"Extend  the  time,"  said  Hetty.  "This  is  a  big  town. 
Think  of  how  many  girls  he  might  have  to  see  soaked  in 
water  with  their  hair  down  before  he  would  recognize  you. 
The  stew's  getting  on  fine  —  but,  oh,  for  an  onion!  I'd 
even  use  a  piece  of  garlic  if  I  had  it." 

The  beef  and  potatoes  bubbled  merrily,  exhaling  a 
mouth-watering  savor  that  yet  lacked  something,  leaving 
a  hunger  on  the  palate,  a  haunting,  wistful  desire  for 
some  lost  and  needful  ingredient. 

"I  came  near  drowning  in  that  awful  river,"  said  Ce 
cilia,  shuddering. 

"It  ought  to  have  more  water  in  it,"  said  Hetty ;  "the 
stew,  I  mean.  I'll  go  get  some  at  the  sink." 

"It  smells  good,"  said  the  artist. 

"That  nasty  old  North  River?"  objected  Hetty.  "It 
smells  to  me  like  soap  factories  and  wet  setter-dogs  — 
oh,  you  mean  the  stew.  Well,  I  wish  we  had  an  onion 
for  it.  Did  he  look  like  he  had  money?" 

"First  he  looked  kind,"  said  Cecilia.  "I'm  sure  he 
was  rich ;  but  that  matters  so  little.  When  he  drew  out 
his  bill-folder  to  pay  the  cabman  you  couldn't  help  seeing 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  dollars  in  it.  And  I  looked 


The  Third  Ingredient  31 

over  the  cab  doors  and  saw  him  leave  the  ferry  station  in 
a  motor-car;  and  the  chauffeur  gave  him  his  bearskin  to 
put  on,  for  he  was  sopping  wet.  And  it  was  only  three 
days  ago." 

"What  a  fool !"  said  Hetty  shortly. 

"Oh,  the  chauffeur  wasn't  wet,"  breathed  Cecilia. 
"And  he  drove  the  car  away  very  nicely." 

"I  mean  you"  said  Hetty.  "For  not  giving  him  your 
address." 

"I  never  give  my  address  to  chauffeurs,"  said  Cecilia, 
haughtily. 

"I  wish  we  had  one,"  said  Hetty,  disconsolately. 

"What  for?" 

"For  the  stew,  of  course  —  oh,  I  mean  an  onion." 

Hetty  took  a  pitcher  and  started  to  the  sink  at  the 
end  of  the  hall. 

A  young  man  came  down  the  stairs  from  above  just  as 
she  was  opposite  the  lower  step.  He  was  decently 
dressed,  but  pale  and  haggard.  His  eyes  were  dull  with 
the  stress  of  some  burden  of  physical  or  mental  woe.  In 
his  hand  he  bore  an  onion  —  a  pink,  smooth,  solid,  shin 
ing  onion,  as  large  around  as  a  ninety-eight-cent  alarm 
clock. 

Hetty  stopped.  So  did  the  young  man.  There  was 
something  Joan  of  Arc-ish,  Herculean,  and  Una-ish  in 
the  look  and  pose  of  the  shop-lady  —  she  had  cast  off  the 
roles  of  Job  and  Little-Red-RJding-Hood.  The  young 
man  stopped  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  and  coughed  dis 
tractedly.  He  felt  marooned,  held  up,  attacked,  as- 


32  Options 

sailed,  levied  upon,  sacked,  assessed,  panhandled,  brow 
beaten,  though  he  knew  not  why.  It  was  the  look  in 
Hetty's  eyes  that  did  it.  In  them  he  saw  the  Jolly  Roger 
fly  to  the  masthead  and  an  able  seaman  with  a  dirk  be 
tween  his  teeth  scurry  up  the  ratlines  and  nail  it  there. 
But  as  yet  he  did  not  know  that  the  cargo  he  carried  was 
the  thing  that  had  caused  him  to  be  so  nearly  blown  out 
of  the  water  without  even  a  parley. 

"Beg  your  pardon,"  said  Hetty,  as  sweetly  as  her 
dilute  acetic  acid  tones  permitted,  "but  did  you  find  that 
onion  on  the  stairs  ?  There  was  a  hole  in  the  paper  bag ; 
and  I've  just  come  out  to  look  for  it." 

The  young  man  coughed  for  half  a  minute.  The  in 
terval  may  have  given  him  the  courage  to  defend  his  own 
property.  Also,  he  clutched  his  pungent  prize  greedily, 
and,  with  a  show  of  spirit,  faced  his  grim  waylayer. 

"No,"  he  said  huskily,  "I  didn't  find  it  on  the  stairs. 
It  was  given  to  me  by  Jack  Bevens,  on  the  top  floor.  If 
you  don't  believe  it,  ask  him.  I'll  wait  until  you  do." 

"I  know  about  Bevens,"  said  Hetty,  sourly.  "He 
writes  books  and  things  up  there  for  the  paper-and-rags 
man.  We  can  hear  the  postman  guy  him  all  over  the 
house  when  he  brings  them  thick  envelopes  back.  Say 
—  do  you  live  in  the  Vallambrosa?  " 

"I  do  not,"  said  the  young  man.  "I  come  to  see  Bevens 
sometimes.  He's  my  friend.  I  live  two  blocks  west." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  the  onion  ?  —  begging 
your  pardon,"  said  Hetty. 

"I'm  going  to  eat  it." 


The  Third  Ingredient  38 

"Raw?" 

"Yes :  as  soon  as  I  get  home." 

"Haven't  you  got  anything  else  to  eat  with  it?" 

The  young  man  considered  briefly. 

"No,"  he  confessed ;  "there's  not  another  scrap 
3f  anything  in  my  diggings  to  eat.  I  think  old  Jack 
is  pretty  hard  up  for  grub  in  his  shack,  too.  He  hated 
to  give  up  the  onion,  but  I  worried  him  into  parting 
with  it." 

"Man,"  said  Hetty,  fixing  him  with  her  world-sapient 
eyes,  and  laying  a  bony  but  impressive  finger  on  his 
sleeve,  "you've  known  trouble,  too,  haven't  you?" 

"Lots,"  said  the  onion  owner,  promptly.  "But  this 
onion  is  my  own  property,  honestly  come  by.  If  you  will 
excuse  me,  I  must  be  going." 

"Listen,"  said  Hetty,  paling  a  little  with  anxiety. 
"Raw  onion  is  a  mighty  poor  diet.  And  so  is  a  beef- 
stew  without  one.  Now,  if  you're  Jack  Bcvcns'  friend, 
I  guess  you're  nearly  right.  There's  a  little  lady  —  a 
friend  of  mine  —  in  my  room  there  at  the  end  of  the  hall. 
Both  of  us  arc  out  of  luck  ;  and  we  had  just  potatoes  and 
meat  between  us.  They're  stewing  now.  But  it  ain't 
got  any  soul.  There's  something  lacking  to  it.  There's 
certain  things  in  life  that  are  naturally  intended  to  fit 
and  belong  together.  One  is  pink  cheese-cloth  and  green 
roses,  and  one  is  ham  and  eggs,  and  one  is  Irish  and 
trouble.  And  the  other  one  is  beef  and  potatoes  with 
onions.  And  still  another  one  is  people  who  are  up 
against  it  and  other  people  in  the  same  fix." 


34  Options 

The  young  man  went  into  a  protracted  paroxysm  of 
coughing.  With  one  hand  he  hugged  his  onion  to  his 
bosom. 

"No  doubt ;  no  doubt,"  said  he,  at  length.  "But,  as  I 
said,  I  must  be  going  because " 

Hetty  clutched  his  sleeve  firmly. 

"Don't  be  a  Dago,  Little  Brother.  Don't  eat  raw 
onions.  Chip  it  in  toward  the  dinner  and  line  yourself 
inside  with  the  best  stew  you  ever  licked  a  spoon  over. 
Must  two  ladies  knock  a  young  gentleman  down  and  drag 
him  inside  for  the  honor  of  dining  with  'em?  No  harm 
shall  befall  you,  Little  Brother.  Loosen  up  ancl  fall  into 
line." 

The  young  man's  pale  face  relaxed  into  a  grin. 

"Believe  I'll  go  you,"  he  said,  brightening.  "If  my 
onion  is  good  as  a  credential,  I'll  accept  the  invitation 
gladly." 

"It's  good  as  that,  but  better  as  seasoning,"  said 
Hetty.  "You  come  and  stand  outside  the  door  till  I  ask 
my  lady  friend  if  she  has  any  objections.  And  don't 
run  away  with  that  letter  of  recommendation  before  I 
come  out." 

Hetty  went  into  her  room  and  closed  the  door.  The 
young  man  waited  outside. 

"Cecilia,  kid,"  said  the  shop-girl,  oiling  the  sharp  saw 
of  her  voice  as  well  as  she  could,  "there's  an  onion  out 
side.  With  a  young  man  attached.  I've  asked  him  in 
to  dinner.  You  ain't  going  to  kick,  arc  you?" 

"Oh,  dear !"  said  Cecilia,  sitting  up  and  patting  her 


The  Third  Ingredient  35 

artistic  hair.  She  cast  a  mournful  glance  at  the  ferry 
boat  poster  on  the  wall. 

"Nit,"  said  Hetty.  "It  ain't  him.  You're  up  against 
real  life  now.  I  believe  you  said  your  hero  friend  had 
money  and  automobiles.  This  is  a  poor  skeezicks  that's 
got  nothing  to  eat  but  an  onion.  But  he's  easy-spoken 
and  not  a  frcshy.  I  imagine  he's  been  a  gentleman,  he's 
so  low  down  now.  And  we  need  the  onion.  Shall  I 
bring  him  in?  I'll  guarantee  his  behavior." 

"Hetty,  dear,"  sighed  Cecilia,  "I'm  so  hungry.  What 
difference  does  it  make  whether  he's  a  prince  or  a  burglar? 
I  don't  care.  Bring  him  in  if  he's  got  anything  to  eat 
v:th  him." 

Hetty  went  back  into  the  hall.  The  onion  man  was 
gone.  Her  heart  missed  a  beat,  and  a  gray  look  settled 
over  her  face  except  on  her  nose  and  cheek-bones.  And 
then  the  tides  of  life  flowed  in  again,  for  she  saw  him  lean 
ing  out  of  the  front  window  at  the  other  end  of  the  hall. 
She  hurried  there.  He  was  shouting  to  some  one  below. 
The  noise  of  the  street  overpowered  the  sound  of  her  foot 
steps.  She  looked  down  over  his  shoulder,  saw  whom  he 
was  speaking  to,  and  heard  his  words.  He  pulled  him 
self  in  from  the  window-sill  and  saw  her  standing  over  him. 

Hetty's  eyes  bored  into  him  like  two  steel  gimlets. 

"Don't  lie  to  me,"  she  said,  calmly.  "What  were  you 
going  to  do  with  that  onion?" 

The  young  man  suppressed  a  cough  and  faced  her 
resolutely.  His  manner  was  that  of  one  who  had  been 
bearded  sufficiently. 


3§  Options 

"I  was  going  to  eat  it,"  said  he,  with  emphatic  slow 
ness  ;  "just  as  I  told  you  before." 

"And  you  have  nothing  else  to  eat  at  home?" 
"Not  a  thing." 

"What  kind  of  work  do  you  do?" 
"I  am  not  working  at  anything  just  now." 
"Then  why,"  said  Hetty,  with  her  voice  set  on  it» 
sharpest  edge,  "do  you  lean  out  of  windows  and  give  or 
ders  to  chauffeurs  in  green  automobiles  in  the  street  be 
low?" 

The  young  man  flushed,  and  his  dull  eyes  began  to 
sparkle. 

"Because,  madam,"  said  he,  in  accelerando  tones,  "I 
pay  the  chauffeur's  wages  and  I  own  the  automobile  — 
and  also  this  onion  —  this  onion,  madam." 

He  flourished  the  onion  within  an  inch  of  Hetty's  nose. 
The  shop-lady  did  not  retreat  a  hair's-breadth. 

"Then  why  do  you  eat  onions,"  she  said,  with  biting 
contempt,  "and  nothing  else?" 

"I  never  said  I  did,"  retorted  the  young  man,  heatedly. 
"I  said  I  had  nothing  else  to  eat  where  I  live.  I  am  not 
a  delicatessen  storekeeper." 

"Then  why,"  pursued  Hetty,  inflexibly,  "were  you 
going  to  cat  a  raw  onion?" 

"My  mother,"  said  the  young  man,  "always  made  me 
eat  one  for  a  cold.  Pardon  my  referring  to  a  physical 
infirmity ;  but  you  may  have  noticed  that  I  have  a  very, 
very  severe  cold.  I  was  going  to  eat  the  onion  and  go  to 
bed.  I  wonder  why  I  am  standing  here  and  apologizing 
to  you  for  it.w 


The  Third  Ingredient  37 

"How  did  you  catch  this  cold?"  went  on  Hetty,  sus 
piciously. 

The  young  man  seemed  to  have  arrived  at  some  ex 
treme  height  of  feeling.  There  were  two  modes  of  de 
scent  open  to  him  —  a  burst  of  rage  or  a  surrender  to 
the  ridiculous.  He  chose  wisely ;  and  the  empty  hall 
echoed  his  hoarse  laughter. 

"You're  a  dandy,"  said  he.  "And  I  don't  blame  you 
for  being  careful.  I  don't  mind  telling  you.  I  got  wet. 
I  was  on  a  North  River  ferry  a  few  days  ago  when  a  girl 
jumped  overboard.  Of  course,  I " 

Hetty  extended  her  hand,  interrupting  his  story. 

"Give  me  the  onion,"  she  said. 

The  young  man  set  his  jaw  a  trifle  harder. 

"Give  me  the  onion,"  she  repeated. 

He  grinned,  and  laid  it  in  her  hand. 

Then  Hetty's  infrequent,  grim,  melancholy  smile 
showed  itself.  She  took  the  young  man's  arm  and 
pointed  with  her  other  hand  to  the  door  of  her  room. 

"Little  Brother,"  she  said,  "go  in  there.  The  little 
fool  you  fished  out  of  the  river  is  there  waiting  for  you. 
Go  on  in.  I'll  give  you  three  minutes  before  I  come. 
Potatoes  is  in  there,  waiting.  Go  on  in,  Onions." 

After  he  had  tapped  at  the  door  and  entered,  Hetty 
began  to  peel  and  wash  the  onion  at  the  sink.  She  gave 
a  gray  look  at  the  gray  roofs  outside  and  the  smile  on 
her  face  vanished  by  little  jerks  and  twitches. 

"But  it's  us,"  she  said,  grimly,  to  herself,  "it's  us 
.that  furnished  the  beef." 


A.  LANK,  strong,  red-faced  man  with  a  Wellington 
beak  and  small,  fiery  eyes  tempered  by  flaxen  lashes,  sat 
on  the  station  platform  at  Los  Pinos  swinging  his  legs  to 
and  fro.  At  his  side  sat  another  man,  fat,  melancholy, 
and  seedy,  who  seemed  to  be  his  friend.  They  had  the 
appearance  of  men  to  whom  life  had  appeared  as  a  rever 
sible  coat  —  seamy  on  both  sides. 

"Ain't  seen  you  in  about  four  years,  Ham,"  said  the 
seedy  man.  "Which  way  you  been  travelling?" 

''Texas, "  said  the  red-faced  man.  "It  was  too  cold 
iA  Alaska  for  me.  And  I  found  it  warm  in  Texas.  I'll 
tell  you  about  one  hot  spell  I  went  through  there. 

"One  morning  I  steps  off  the  International  at  a  water- 
tank  and  lets  it  go  on  without  me.  'Twas  a  ranch  coun 
try,  and  fuller  of  spite-houses  than  New  York  City. 
Only  out  there  they  build  'em  twenty  miles  away  so  you 
can't  smell  what  they've  got  for  dinner,  instead  of  run 
ning  'em  up  two  inches  from  their  neighbors'  windows. 

"There  wasn't  any  roads  in  sight,  so  I  footed  it  'cross 
country.  The  grass  was  shoe-top  deep,  and  the  mesquite 
timber  looked  just  like  a  peach  orchard.  It  was  so  much 
like  a  gentleman's  private  estate  that  every  minute  you 

expected  a  kennelful  of  bulldogs  to  run  out  and  bite  you. 

28 


The  Hiding  of  Black  Bill  39 

But  I  must  have  walked  twenty  miles  before  I  came  in 
sight  of  a  ranch-house.  It  was  a  little  one,  about  as  big 
as  an  elevated  railroad  station. 

"There  was  a  little  man  in  a  white  shirt  and  brown 
overalls  and  a  pink  handkerchief  around  his  neck  rolling 
cigarettes  under  a  tree  in  front  of  the  door. 

"  'Greetings,'  says  I.  'Any  refreshment,  welcome, 
emoluments,  or  even  work  for  a  comparative  stranger?' 

"  'Oh,  come  in,'  says  he,  in  a  refined  tone.  'Sit 
down  on  that  stool,  please.  I  didn't  hear  your  horse 
coming.' 

"  'He  isn't  near  enough  yet,'  says  I.  'I  walked.  I 
don't  want  to  be  a  burden,  but  I  wonder  if  you  have  three 
or  four  gallons  of  water  handy.' 

"  'You  do  look  pretty  dusty,'  says  he ;  'but  our  bathing 
arrangements ' 

"  'It's  a  drink  I  want,'  says  I.  'Never  mind  the  dust 
that's  on  the  outside.' 

"He  gets  n\e  a  dipper  of  water  out  of  a  red  jar  hang 
ing  up,  and  then  goes  on : 

"  'Do  you  want  work?' 

"  'For  a  time,'  says  I.  'This  is  a  rather  quiet  section 
of  the  country,  isn't  it?' 

"'It  is,'  says  he.  'Sometimes  —  so  I  have  been  told 
—  one  sees  no  human  being  pass  for  weeks  at  a  time. 
I've  been  here  only  a  month.  I  bought  the  ranch  from 
an  old  settler  who  wanted  to  move  farther  west.' 

"  'It  suits  me,'  says  I.  'Quiet  and  retirement  are  good 
for  a  man  sometimes.  And  I  need  a  job.  I  can  tend 


40  Options 

bar,  salt  mines,  lecture,  float  stock,  do  a  little  middle 
weight  slugging,  and  play  the  piano.' 

"  'Can  you  herd  sheep?'  asks  the  little  ranchman. 

"'Do  you  mean  have  I  heard  sheep?'  says  I. 

"'Can  you  herd  'em  —  take  charge  of  a  flock  of  'em?' 
says  he. 

"'Oh,'  says  I,  'now  I  understand.  You  mean  chase 
'em  around  and  bark  at  'em  like  collie  dogs.  Well,  I 
might,'  says  I.  'I've  never  exactly  done  any  sheep- 
herding,  but  I've  often  seen  'em  from  car  windows  masti 
cating  daisies,  and  they  don't  look  dangerous.' 

"  'I'm  short  a  herder,'  says  the  ranchman.  'You 
never  can  depend  on  the  Mexicans.  I've  only  got  two 
flocks.  You  may  take  out  my  bunch  of  muttons  —  there 
are  only  eight  hundred  of  'cm  —  in  the  morning,  if  you 
like.  The  pay  is  twelve  dollars  a  month  and  your  rations 
furnished.  You  camp  in  a  tent  on  the  prairie  with  your 
sheep.  You  do  your  own  cooking,  but  wood  and  water 
are  brought  to  your  camp.  It's  an  easy  job.' 

"'I'm  on,'  says  I.  'I'll  take  the  job  even  if  I  have 
to  garland  my  brow  and  hold  on  to  a  crook  and  wear 
a  loose  effect  and  play  on  a  pipe  like  the  shepherds  do 
in  pictures.' 

"So  the  next  morning  the  little  ranchman  helps  me 
drive  the  flock  of  muttons  from  the  corral  to  about  two 
miles  out  and  let  'em  graze  on  a  little  hillside  on  the 
prairie.  He  gives  me  a  lot  of  instructions  about  not 
letting  bunches  of  them  stray  off  from  the  herd,  and 
driving  'em  down  to  a  water-hole  to  drink  at  noon. 


The  Hiding  of  Black  Bill  41 

"'I'll  bring  out  your  tent  and  camping  outfit  and 
rations  in  the  buckboard  before  night,'  says  he. 

"  'Fine,'  says  I.  'And  don't  forget  the  rations.  Nor 
the  camping  outfit.  And  be  sure  to  bring  the  tent. 
Your  name's  Zollicoffer,  ain't  it?' 

"  'My  name,'  says  he,  'is  Henry  Ogden.' 

"  'All  right,  Mr.  Ogden,'  says  I.  'Mine  is  Mr.  Per- 
cival  Saint  Clair.' 

Vv 

"I  herded  sheep  for  five  days  on  the  Rancho  Chiqtiito ; 
and  then  the  wool  entered  my  soul.  That  getting  next  to 
Nature  certainly  got  next  to  me.  I  was  lonesomer  than 
Crusoe's  goat.  I've  seen  a  lot  of  persons  more  entertain 
ing  as  companions  than  those  sheep  were.  I'd  drive  'em 
to  the  corral  and  pen  'em  every  evening,  and  then  cook 
my  corn-bread  and  mutton  and  coffee,  and  lie  down  in  a 
tent  the  size  of  a  tablecloth,  and  listen  to  the  coyotes  and 
whip-poor-wills  singing  around  the  camp. 

"The  fifth  evening,  after  I  had  corralled  my  costly  but 
uncongenial  muttons,  I  walked  over  to  the  ranch-house 
and  stepped  in  the  door. 

"'Mr.  Ogden,'  says  I,  'you  and  me  have  got  to  get 
sociable.  Sheep  are  all  very  well  to  dot  the  landscape 
and  furnish  eight-dollar  cotton  suitings  for  man,  but  for 
table-talk  and  fireside  companions  they  rank  along  with 
five-o'clock  teazers.  If  you've  got  a  deck  of  cards,  or  a 
parcheesi  outfit,  or  a  game  of  authors,  get  'em  out,  and 
let's  get  on  a  mental  basis.  I've  got  to  do  something  in 
an  intellectual  line,  if  it's  only  to  knock  somebody's 
brains  out.' 


42  Options 

"This  Henry  Ogden  was  a  peculiar  kind  of  ranchman. 
He  wore  finger-rings  and  a  big  gold  watch  and  careful 
neckties.  And  his  face  was  calm,  and  his  nose-spectacles 
was  kept  very  shiny.  I  saw  once,  in  Muscogec,  an  out 
law  hung  for  murdering  six  men,  who  was  a  dead  ringer 
for  him.  But  I  knew  a  preacher  in  Arkansas  that  you 
would  have  taken  to  be  his  brother.  I  didn't  care  much 
for  him  either  way ;  what  I  wanted  was  some  fellowship 
and  communion  with  holy  saints  or  lost  sinners  —  any 
thing  shcepless  would  do. 

"  'Well,  Saint  Clair,'  says  he,  laying  down  the  book  he 
was  reading,  'I  guess  it  must  be  pretty  lonesome  for  you 
at  first.  And  I  don't  deny  that  it's  monotonous  for  me. 
Are  you  sure  you  corralled  your  sheep  so  they  won't 
stray  out?' 

"  'They're  shut  up  as  tight  as  the  jury  of  a  millionaire 
murderer,'  says  I.  'And  I'll  be  back  with  them  long 
before  they'll  need  their  trained  nurse.' 

"So  Ogden  digs  up  a  deck  of  cards,  and  we  play  casino. 
After  five  days  and  nights  of  my  sheep-camp  it  was  like  a 
toot  on  Broadway.  When  I  caught  big  casino  I  felt  as 
excited  as  if  I  had  made  a  million  in  Trinity.  And  when 
H.  O.  loosened  up  a  little  and  told  the  story  about  the 
lady  in  the  Pullman  car  I  laughed  for  five  minutes. 

"That  showed  what  a  comparative  thing  life  is.  A 
man  may  see  so  much  that  he'd  be  bored  to  turn  his  head 
to  look  at  a  $3,000,000  fire  or  Joe  Weber  or  the  Adriatic 
Sea.  But  let  him  herd  sheep  for  a  spell,  and  you'll  see 
liiiii  splitting  his  ribs  laughing  at  'Curfew  Shall  Not  Ring 


The  Hiding  of  Black  Bill  43 

To-night,'  or  really  enjoying  himself  playing  cards  with 
ladies. 

"By-and-by  Ogden  gets  out  a  decanter  of  Bourbon, 
and  then  'here  is  a  total  eclipse  of  sheep. 

"  'Do  you  remember  reading  in  the  papers,  about  a 
month  ago,'  says  he,  'about  a  train  hold-up  on  the  M.  K. 
&  T.  ?  The  express  agent  was  shot  through  the  shoulder 
and  about  $15,000  in  currency  taken.  And  it's  said  that 
only  one  man  did  the  job.' 

"  'Seems  to  me  I  do,'  says  I.  'But  such  things  hap 
pen  so  often  they  don't  linger  long  in  the  human  Texas 
mind.  Did  they  overtake,  overhaul,  seize,  or  lay  hands 
upon  the  despoiler?' 

"  'He  escaped,'  says  Ogden.  'And  I  was  just  reading 
in  a  paper  to-day  that  the  officers  have  tracked  him  down 
into  this  part  of  the  country.  It  seems  the  bills  the 
robber  got  were  all  the  first  issue  of  currency  to  the 
Second  National  Bank  of  Espinosa  City.  And  so  they've 
followed  the  trail  where  they've  been  spent,  and  it  leads 
this  way.' 

"Ogden  pours  out  some  more  Bourbon,  and  shoves  me 
the  bottle. 

"  'I  imagine,'  says  I,  after  ingurgitating  another  modi 
cum  of  the  royal  booze,  'that  it  wouldn't  be  at  all  a  disin 
genuous  idea  for  a  train-robber  to  run  down  into  this  part 
of  the  country  to  hide  for  a  spell.  A  sheep-ranch,  now,' 
says  I,  'would  be  the  finest  kind  of  a  place.  Who'd  ever 
expect  to  find  such  a  desperate  character  among  these 
song-birds  and  muttons  and  wild  flowers?  And,  by  the 


44  Options 

way,*  says  I,  kind  of  looking  H.  Ogdcn  over,  'was  there 
suiy  description  mentioned  of  this  single-handed  terror? 
Was  his  lineaments  or  height  and  thickness  or  teeth  fill 
ings  or  style  of  habiliments  set  forth  in  print?' 

"  'Why,  no,'  says  Ogden ;  'they  say  nobody  got  a  good 
sight  of  him  because  he  wore  a  mask.  But  they  know  it 
was  a  train-robber  called  Black  Bill,  because  he  always 
works  alone  and  because  he  dropped  a  handkerchief  in 
the  express-car  that  had  his  name  on  it.' 

"'All  right,'  says  I.  'I  approve  of  Black  Bill's  re 
treat  to  the  sheep-ranges.  I  guess  they  won't  find  him.' 

"'There's  one  thousand  dollars  reward  for  his  cap 
ture,'  says  Ogden. 

"  'I  don't  need  that  kind  of  money,'  says  I,  looking  Mr. 
Sheepman  straight  in  the  eye.  'The  twelve  dollars  a 
month  you  pay  me  is  enough.  I  need  a  rest,  and  I  can 
save  up  until  I  get  enough  to  pay  my  fare  to  Texarkana, 
where  my  widowed  mother  lives.  If  Black  Bill,'  I  goes 
on,  looking  significantly  at  Ogden,  'was  to  have  come 
down  this  way  —  say,  a  month  ago  —  and  bought  a  lit 
tle  sheep-ranch  and ' 

"  'Stop,'  says  Ogden,  getting  out  of  his  chair  and  look 
ing  pretty  vicious.  'Do  you  mean  to  insinuate ' 

"'Nothing,'  says  I;  'no  insinuations.  I'm  stating  a 
hypodermical  case.  I  say,  if  Black  Bill  had  come  down 
here  and  bought  a  sheep-ranch  and  hired  me  to  Little- 
Boy-Blue  'em  and  treated  me  square  and  friendly,  as 
you've  done,  he'd  never  have  anything  to  fear  from  me. 
A  man  is  a  man,  regardless  of  any  complications  he  may 


The  Hiding  of  Black  Rill  45 

have  with  sheep  or  railroad  trains.  Now  you  know 
where  I  stand.' 

"Ogden  looks  black  as  camp-coffee  for  nine  seconds* 
and  then  he  laughs,  amused. 

"  'You'll  do,  Saint  Clair,'  says  he.  'If  I  was  Black  Bill 
I  wouldn't  be  afraid  to  trust  you.  Let's  have  a  game  or 
two  of  sevcn-up  to-night.  That  is,  if  you  don't  mind 
playing  with  a  train-robber.' 

"'I've  told  you,'  says  I,  'my  oral  sentiments,  and 
there's  no  strings  to  'em.' 

"While  I  was  shuffling  after  the  first  hand,  I  asks 
Ogdcn,  as  if  the  idea  was  a  kind  of  a  casualty,  where  he 
was  from. 

"'Oh,'  says  he,  'from  the  Mississippi  Valley.' 

"'That's  a  nice  little  place,'  says  I.  'I've  often 
stopped  over  there.  But  didn't  you  find  the  sheets  a  lit 
tle  damp  and  the  food  poor?  Now,  I  hail,'  says  I,  'from 
the  Pacific  Slope.  Ever  put  up  there?' 

"  'Too  draughty,'  says  Ogden.  'But  if  you're  ever  in 
the  Middle  West  just  mention  my  name,  and  you'll  get 
foot-warmers  and  dripped  coffee.' 

"  'Well,'  says  I,  'I  wasn't  exactly  fishing  for  your  pri 
vate  telephone  number  and  the  middle  name  of  your  aunt 
that  carried  off  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  minister. 
It  don't  matter.  I  just  want  you  to  know  you  are  safe 
in  the  hands  of  your  shepherd.  Now,  don't  play  hearts 
on  spades,  and  don't  get  nervous.' 

"  'Still  harping,'  says  Ogden,  laughing  again.  'Don't 
you  suppose  that  if  I  was  Black  Bill  and  thought  you 


46  Options 

suspected  me,  I'd  put  a  Winchester  bullet  into  you  and 
stop  my  nervousness  if  I  had  any  ?' 

"'Not  any,'  says  I.  *A  man  who's  got  the  nerve  to 
hold  up  a  train  single-handed  wouldn't  do  a  trick  like 
that.  I've  knocked  about  enough  to  know  that  them  are 
the  kind  of  men  who  put  a  value  on  a  friend.  Not  that  I 
can  claim  being  a  friend  of  yours,  Mr.  Ogden,'  says  I, 
'being  only  your  sheep-herder;  but  under  more  expedi 
tious  circumstances  we  might  have  been.' 

'"Forget  the  sheep  temporarily,  I  beg,'  says  Ogden, 
'and  cut  for  deal.' 

"About  four  days  afterward,  while  my  muttons  was 
nooning  on  the  water-hole  and  I  deep  in  the  interstices  of 
making  a  pot  of  coffee,  up  rides  softly  on  the  grass  a 
mysterious  person  in  the  garb  of  the  being  he  wished  to 
represent.  He  was  dressed  somewhere  between  a  Kansas 
City  detective,  Buffalo  Bill,  and  the  town  dog-catcher  of 
Baton  Rouge.  His  chin  and  eye  wasn't  molded  on  fight 
ing  lines,  so  I  knew  he  was  only  a  scout. 

"  'Herdin'  sheep?'  he  asks  me. 

"  'Well,'  says  I,  'to  a  man  of  your  evident  gumptional 
endowments,  I  wouldn't  have  the  nerve  to  state  that  I 
am  engaged  in  decorating  old  bronzes  or  oiling  bicycle 
sprockets.' 

"'You  don't  talk  or  look  like  a  sheep-herder  to  me,' 
says  he. 

"  'But  you  talk  like  what  you  look  like  to  me,'  says  I. 

"And  then  he  asks  me  who  I  was  working  for,  and  I 


TJie  Hiding  of  Black  Bill  4«f 

shows  him  Rancho  Chiqiiito,  two  miles  away,  in  the 
shadow  of  a  low  hill,  and  he  tells  me  he's  a  deputy 
sheriff. 

"  'There's  a  train-robber  called  Black  Bill  supposed  to 
be  somewhere  in  these  parts,'  says  the  scout.  'He's  been 
traced  as  far  as  San  Antonio,  and  may  be  farther.  Have 
you  seen  or  heard  of  any  strangers  around  here  during 
the  past  month?' 

"  'I  have  not,'  says  I,  'except  a  report  of  one  over  at 
the  Mexican  quarters  of  Loomis'  ranch,  on  the  Frio.' 
"'What  do  you  know  about  him?'  asks  the  deputy. 
"  'He's  three  days  old,'  says  I. 

"  'What  kind  of  a  looking  man  is  the  man  you  work 
for?'  he  asks.  'Does  old  George  Ramey  own  this  place 
yet?  He's  run  sheep  here  for  the  last  ten  years,  but 
never  had  no  success.' 

"'The  old  man  has  sold  out  and  gone  West,'  I  tells 
him.  'Another  sheep-fancier  bought  him  out  about  a 
month  ago.' 

"'What  kind  of  a  looking  man  is  he?'  asks  the  deputy 
again. 

"  'Oh,*  says  I,  'a  big,  fat  kind  of  a  Dutchman  with  long 
whiskers  and  blue  specs.  I  don't  think  he  knows  a  sheep 
from  a  ground-squirrel.  I  guess  old  George  soaked  him 
pretty  well  on  the  deal,'  says  I. 

"After  indulging  himself  in  a  lot  more  non-communi 
cative  information  and  two  thirds  of  my  dinner,  the 
deputy  rides  away. 

"That  night  I  mentions  the  matter  to  Ogden. 


48  Options 

"  'They're  drawing  the  tendrils  of  the  octopus  around 
Black  Bill,'  says  I.  And  then  I  told  him  about  the 
deputy  sheriff',  and  how  I'd  described  him  to  the  deputy, 
and  what  the  deputy  said  about  the  matter. 

"'Oh,  well,'  says  Ogden,  'let's  don't  borrow  any  of 
Black  Bill's  troubles.  We've  a  few  of  our  own.  Get 
the  Bourbon  out  of  the  cupboard  and  we'll  drink  to  his 
health  —  unless,'  says  he,  with  his  little  cackling  laugh, 
'you're  prejudiced  against  train-robbers.' 

"'I'll  drink,'  says  I,  'to  any  man  who's  a  friend  to  a 
friend.  And  I  believe  that  Black  Bill,'  I  goes  on,  'would 
be  that.  So  here's  to  Black  Bill,  and  may  W  have  good 
luck.' 

"And  both  of  us  drank. 

"About  two  weeks  later  comes  shearing-time.  The 
sheep  had  to  be  driven  up  to  the  ranch,  and  a  lot  of 
frowzy-headed  Mexicans  would  snip  the  fur  off  of  them 
with  back-action  scissors.  So  the  afternoon  before  the 
barbers  were  to  come  I  hustled  my  underdone  muttons 
orer  the  hill,  across  the  dell,  down  by  the  winding  brook, 
and  up  to  the  ranch-house,  where  I  penned  'em  in  a  corral 
and  bade  'em  my  nightly  adieus. 

"I  went  from  there  to  the  ranch -house.  I  find  H. 
Ogden,  Esquire,  lying  asleep  on  his  little  cot  bed.  I  guess 
bo  had  been  overcome  by  anti-insomnia  or  diswakefulness 
or  some  of  the  diseases  peculiar  to  the  sheep  business. 
His  mouth  and  vest  were  open,  and  he  breathed  like  a 
second-hand  bicycle  pump.  I  looked  at  him  and  gave 
rent  to  just  a  few  musings.  'Imperial  C«esar,'  says  I, 


The  Hiding  of  Black  Rill  49 

'asleep  in  such  a  way,  might  shut  his  mouth  and  keep 
tbe  wind  away.' 

"A  man  asleep  is  certainly  a  sight  to  make  angels  weep. 
What  good  is  all  his  brain,  muscle,  backing,  nerve,  in 
fluence,  and  family  connections?  He's  at  the  mercy  of 
his  enemies,  and  more  so  of  his  friends.  And  he's  about 
as  beautiful  as  a  cab-horse  leaning  against  the  Metropol 
itan  Opera  House  at  12.30  A.  M.  dreaming  of  the  plains 
of  Arabia.  Now,  a  woman  asleep  you  regard  as  dif- 
erent.  No  matter  how  she  looks,  you  know  it's  better 
for  all  hands  for  her  to  be  that  way. 

"Well,  I  took  a  drink  of  Bourbon  and  one  for  Ogden, 
and  started  in  to  be  comfortable  while  he  was  taking  his 
nap.  He  had  some  books  on  his  table  on  indigenous 
subjects,  such  as  Japan  and  drainage  and  physical 
culture  —  and  some  tobacco,  which  seemed  more  to  the 
point. 

"After  I'd  smoked  a  few,  and  listened  to  the  sartorial 
breathing  of  H.  ().,  I  happened  to  look  out  the  window 
toward  the  shearing-pens,  where  there  was  a  kind  of  a 
road  coming  up  from  a  kind  of  a  road  across  a  kind  of  a 
creek  farther  away. 

"I  saw  five  men  riding  up  to  the  house.  All  of  'em 
carried  guns  across  their  saddles,  and  among  'era  was  the 
deputy  that  had  talked  to  me  at  my  camp. 

"They  rode  up  careful,  in  open  formation,  with  their 
guns  ready.  I  set  apart  with  my  eye  the  one  I  opinion 
ated  to  be  the  boss  muck-raker  of  this  law-and-order 
cavalry. 


50  Options 

"'Good-evening,  gents,'  says  L  'Won't  you  'light, 
and  tie  your  horses?' 

"The  boss  rides  up  close,  and  swings  his  gun  over  till 
the  opening  in  it  seems  to  cover  my  whole  front  eleva 
tion. 

"  'Don't  you  move  your  hands  none,'  says  he,  'till  you 
and  me  indulge  in  a  adequate  amount  of  necessary  con 
versation.' 

"'I  will  not,'  says  I.  'I  am  no  deaf-mute,  and 
therefore  will  not  have  to  disobey  your  injunctions  in 
replying.' 

"  'We  are  on  the  lookout,'  says  he,  'for  Black  Bill,  the 
man  that  held  up  the  Katy  for  $15,000  in  May.  We  are 
searching  the  ranches  and  everybody  on  'em.  What  is 
your  name,  and  what  do  you  do  on  this  ranch?' 

"'Captain,'  says  I,  'Percival  Saint  Clair  is  my  occu 
pation,  and  my  name  is  sheep-herder.  I've  got  my 
flock  of  veals  —  no,  muttons  —  penned  here  to-night. 
The  searchers  are  coming  to-morrow  to  give  them  a  hair 
cut —  with  baa-a-rum,  I  suppose.' 

"'Where's  the  boss  of  this  ranch?'  the  captain  of  the 
gang  asks  me. 

"'Wait  just  a  minute,  cap'n,'  says  I.  'Wasn't  there 
a  kind  of  a  reward  offered  for  the  capture  of  this  desper 
ate  character  you  have  referred  to  in  your  preamble?' 

"  'There's  a  thousand  dollars  reward  offered,'  says  the 
captain,  'but  it's  for  his  capture  and  conviction.  There 
don't  seem  to  be  no  provision  made  for  an  informer.' 


The  Hiding  of  Black  Bill  51 

"  'It  looks  like  it  might  rain  in  a  day  or  so,'  says  I,  in 
a  tired  way,  looking  up  at  the  cerulean  blue  sky. 

'"If  you  know  anything  about  the  locality,  disposi 
tion,  or  secrctiveness  of  this  here  Black  Bill,'  says  he,  in 
a  severe  dialect,  'you  are  amiable  to  the  law  in  not  re 
porting  it.' 

"  'I  heard  a  fence-rider  say,'  says  I,  in  a  desultory  kind 
of  voice,  'that  a  Mexican  told  a  cowboy  named  Jake  over 
at  Pidgin's  store  on  the  Nueces  that  he  heard  that  Black 
Bill  had  been  seen  in  Matamoras  by  a  sheepman's  cousin 
two  weeks  ago.' 

"  'Tell  you  what  I'll  do,  Tight  Mouth,'  says  the  cap 
tain,  after  looking  me  over  for  bargains.  'If  you  put  us 
on  so  we  can  scoop  Black  Bill,  I'll  pay  you  a  hundred 
dollars  out  of  my  own  —  out  of  our  own  —  pockets. 
That's  liberal,'  says  he.  'You  ain't  entitled  to  anything. 
Now,  what  do  you  say?' 

"'Cash  down  now?'  I  ask. 

"The  captain  has  a  sort  of  discussion  with  his  help 
mates,  and  they  all  produce  the  contents  of  their  pockets 
for  analysis.  Out  of  the  general  results  they  figured  up 
$102.30  in  cash  and  $31  worth  of  plug  tobacco. 

"  'Come  nearer,  capitan  meeo,'  says  I,  'and  listen.' 
He  so  did. 

"  'I  am  mighty  poor  and  low  down  in  the  world,'  says 
I.  'I  am  working  for  twelve  dollars  a  month  trying  to 
keep  a  lot  of  animals  together  whose  only  thought  seems 
to  be  to  get  asunder.  Although,'  says  I,  'I  regard  my 
self  as  some  better  than  the  State  of  South  Dakota,  it's  a 


32  Options 

come-down  to  a  man  who  has  heretofore  regarded  sheep 
only  in  the  form  of  chops.  I'm  pretty  far  reduced  in  the 
world  on  account  of  foiled  ambitions  and  rum  and  a  kind 
of  cocktail  they  make  along  the  P.  R.  R.  all  the  way  from 
Scranton  to  Cincinnati  —  dry  gin,  French  vermouth,  one 
squeeze  of  a  lime,  and  a  good  dash  of  orange  bitters.  If 
you're  ever  up  that  way,  don't  fail  to  let  one  try  you. 
And,  again,'  says  I,  'I  have  never  yet  went  back  on  a 
friend.  I've  stayed  by  'em  when  they  had  plenty,  and 
when  adversity's  overtaken  me  I've  never  forsook  'em, 

"'But,'  I  goes,  on,  'this  is  not  exactly  the  case  of  a 
friend.  Twelve  dollars  a  month  is  only  bowing-ac 
quaintance  money.  And  I  do  not  consider  brown  beans 
and  cornbread  the  food  of  friendship.  I  am  a  poor  man,' 
says  I,  'and  I  have  a  widowed  mother  in  Texarkana. 
You  will  find  Black  Bill,'  says  I,  'lying  asleep  in  this 
house  on  a  cot  in  the  room  to  your  right.  Pie's  the  man 
you  want,  as  I  know  from  his  words  and  conversation. 
He  was  in  a  way  a  friend,'  I  explains,  'and  if  I  was  the 
man  I  once  was  the  entire  product  of  the  mines  of  Gon 
dola  would  not  have  tempted  me  to  betray  him.  But,' 
says  I,  'every  week  half  of  the  beans  was  wormy,  and  not 
nigh  enough  wood  in  camp. 

"  'Better  go  in  careful,  gentlemen,'  says  I.  'He  seems 
impatient  at  times,  and  when  3'ou  think  of  his  late  pro 
fessional  pursuits  one  would  look  for  abrupt  actions  if 
he  was  come  upon  sudden.' 

"So  the  whole  posse  unmounts  and  ties  their  horses, 
and  unlimbcrs  their  ammunition  and  equipments,  and 


The  Hiding  of  Slack  Sill  53 

tiptoes  into  the  house.  And  I  follows,  like  Delilah  when 
she  set  the  Philip  Steins  on  to  Samson. 

"The  leader  of  the  posse  shakes  Ogden  and  wakes  him 
up.  And  then  he  jumps  up,  and  two  more  of  the  reward- 
hunters  grab  him.  Ogden  was  mighty  tough  with  all 
his  slirnness,  and  he  gives  'em  as  neat  a  single-footed  tus 
sle  against  odds  as  I  ever  sec. 

"'What  does  this  mean?'  he  says,  after  they  had  him 
down. 

"  'You're  scooped  in,  Mr.  Black  Bill,'  says  the  cap 
tain.  'That's  all.' 

"  'It's  an  outrage,'  says  H.  Ogden,  madder  yet. 

**  'It  was,'  says  the  peace-and-good-will  man.  'The 
Katy  wasn't  bothering  you,  and  there's  a  law  against 
monkeying  with  express  packages.' 

"And  he  sits  on  H.  Ogden's  stomach  and  goes  through 
his  pockets  symptomatically  and  careful. 

"  'I'll  make  you  perspire  for  this,'  says  Ogden,  perspir 
ing  some  himself.  'I  can  prove  who  I  am.' 

"  'So  can  I,'  says  the  captain,  as  he  draws  from  H. 
Ogden's  inside  coat-pocket  a  handful  of  new  bills  of  the 
Second  National  Bank  of  Espinosa  City.  'Your  regular 
engraved  Tuesdays-and-Fridays  visiting-card  wouldn't 
have  a  louder  voice  in  proclaiming  your  indemnity  than 
this  here  currency.  You  can  get  up  now  and  prepare  to 
go  with  us  and  expatriate  your  sins.' 

"H.  Ogden  gets  up  and  fixes  his  necktie.  He  says  no 
more  after  they  have  taken  the  money  off  of  him. 

"'A  well-greased  idea,'  says  the  sheriff  captain,  ad- 


54  Options 

miring,  'to  slip  off  down  here  and  buy  a  little  sheep- 
ranch  where  the  hand  of  man  is  seldom  heard.  It  was 
the  slickest  hide-out  I  ever  see,'  says  the  captain. 

"So  one  of  the  men  goes  to  the  shearing-pen  and  hunts 
up  the  other  herder,  a  Mexican  they  call  John  Sallies, 
and  he  saddles  Ogden's  horse,  and  the  sheriffs  all  ride  up 
close  around  him  with  their  guns  in  hand,  ready  to  take 
their  prisoner  to  town. 

"Before  starting,  Ogden  puts  the  ranch  in  John  Sallies' 
hands  and  gives  him  orders  about  the  shearing  and  where 
to  graze  the  sheep,  just  as  if  he  intended  to  be  back  in  a 
few  days.  And  a  couple  of  hours  afterward  one  Percival 
Saint  Clair,  an  ex-sheep-herder  of  the  Rancho  Chiquito, 
might  have  been  seen,  with  a  hundred  and  nine  dollars 
• — wages  and  blood  money  —  in  his  pocket,  riding  south 
on  another  horse  belonging  to  said  ranch." 

The  red-faced  man  paused  and  listened.  The  whistle 
of  a  coming  freight-train  sounded  far  away  among  the 
low  hills. 

The  fat,  seedy  man  at  his  side  sniffed,  and  shook  his 
frowzy  head  slowly  and  disparagingly. 

"What  is  it,  Snipy  ?"  asked  the  other.  "Got  the  bl  ues 
again  ?" 

"No,  I  ain't,"  said  the  seedy  one,  sniffing  again.  "But 
I  don't  like  your  talk.  You  and  me  have  been  friends, 
off  and  on,  for  fifteen  year;  and  I  never  yet  knew  or 
heard  of  you  giving  anybody  up  to  the  law  —  not  no  one. 
And  here  was  a  man  whose  saleratus  you  had  et  and  at 
whose  table  you  had  plajed  games  of  cards- — if  casino 


The  Hiding  of  Black  Bill  55 

can  be  so  called.  And  yet  you  inform  him  to  the  law  and 
take  money  for  it.  It  never  was  like  you,  I  say." 

"This  H.  Ogdcn,"  resumed  the  red-faced  man, 
"through  a  lawyer,  proved  himself  free  by  alibis  and 
other  legal  terminalities,  as  I  so  heard  afterward.  He 
never  suffered  no  harm.  He  did  me  favors,  and  I  hated 
to  hand  him  over." 

"How  about  the  bills  they  found  in  his  pocket?"  asked 
the  seedy  man. 

"I  put  'em  there,"  said  the  red-faced  man,  "while  he 
was  asleep,  when  I  saw  the  posse  riding  up.  I  was  Black 
Bill.  Look  out,  Snipy,  here  she  comes !  We'll  board 
her  on  the  bumpers  when  she  takes  water." 


SCHOOLS  AND  SCHOOLS 


Jerome  Warren  lived  in  a  hundrcd-thousand-dol- 
lar  house  at  35  East  Fifty-Soforth  Street.  He  was  * 
downtown  broker,  so  rich  that  lie  could  afford  to  walk  — 
for  his  health  —  a  few  blocks  in  the  direction  of  his 
office  every  morning  and  then  call  a  cab. 

He  had  an  adopted  son,  the  son  of  an  old  friend  named 
Gilbert  —  Cyril  Scott  could  play  him  nicely  —  who  was 
becoming  a  successful  painter  as  fast  as  he  could  squeeze 
the  paint  out  of  his  tubes.  Another  member  of  the  house 
hold  was  Barbara  Ross,  a  step-niece.  Man  is  born  to 
trouble;  so,  as  old  Jerome  had  no  family  of  his  own,  he 
took  up  the  burdens  of  others. 

Gilbert  and  Barbara  got  along  swimmingly.  There 
was  a  tacit  and  tactical  understanding  all  round  that  the 
two  would  stand  up  under  a  floral  bell  some  high  noon> 
and  promise  the  minister  to  keep  old  Jerome's  money  in 
a  state  of  high  commotion.  But  at  this  point  compli 
cations  must  be  introduced. 

Thirty  years  before,  when  old  Jerome  was  young 
Jerome,  there  was  a  brother  of  his  named  Dick.  Dick 
went  West  to  seek  his  or  somebody  else's  fortune.  Noth 

ing  was  heard  of  him  until  one  day  old  Jerome  had  & 

56 


Schools  and  Schools  57 

fetter  from  his  brother.  It  was  badly  written  on  ruled 
paper  that  smclled  of  salt  bacon  and  coffee-grounds. 
The  writing  was  asthmatic  and  the  spelling  St.  Vitusy. 

It  appeared  that  instead  of  Dick  having  forced  For 
tune  to  stand  and  deliver,  he  had  been  held  up  himself,  and 
made  to  give  hostages  to  the  enemy.  That  is,  as  his  letter 
disclosed,  lie  was  on  the  point  of  pegging  out  with  a 
complication  of  disorders  that  even  whiskey  had  failed  to 
check.  All  that  his  thirty  years  of  prospecting  had  net 
ted  him  was  one  daughter,  nineteen  years  old,  as  per  in 
voice,  whom  he  was  shipping  East,  charges  prepaid,  for 
Jerome  to  clothe,  feed,  educate,  comfort,  and  cherish  for 
the  rest  of  her  natural  life  or  until  matrimony  should 
them  part. 

Old  Jerome  was  a  board-walk.  Everybody  knows  that 
the  world  is  supported  by  the  shoulders  of  Atlas;  and 
that  Atlas  stands  on  a  rail-fence ;  and  that  the  rail- 
fence  is  built  on  a  turtle's  back.  Now,  the  turtle  has  to 
stand  on  something;  and  that  is  a  board-walk  made  of 
men  like  old  Jerome. 

I  do  not  know  whether  immortality  shall  accrue  to 
man ;  but  if  not  so,  I  would  like  to  know  when  men  like  old 
Jerome  get  what  is  due  them? 

They  met  Nevada  Warren  at  the  station.  She  was  a 
little  girl,  deeply  sunburned  and  wholesomely  good-look 
ing,  with  a  manner  that  was  frankly  unsophisticated,  yet 
one  that  not  even  a  cigar-drummer  would  intrude  upon 
without  thinking  twice.  Looking  at  her,  somehow  you 
would  expect  to  see  her  in  a  short  skirt  and  leather  leg- 


58  Options 

gings,  shooting  glass  balls  or  taming  mustangs.  But  in 
her  plain  white  waist  and  black  skirt  she  sent  you  guess 
ing  again.  With  an  easy  exhibition  of  strength  she 
swung  along  a  heavy  valise,  which  the  uniformed  porters 
tried  in  vain  to  wrest  from  her. 

"I  am  sure  we  shall  be  the  best  of  friends,"  said  Bar 
bara,  pecking  at  the  firm,  sunburned  cheek. 

"I  hope  so,"  said  Nevada. 

"Dear  little  niece,"  said  old  Jerome,  "you  are  as 
welcome  to  my  house  as  if  it  were  your  father's  own." 

"Thanks,"  said  Nevada. 

"And  I  am  going  to  call  you  'cousin,' "  said  Gilbert, 
with  his  charming  smile. 

"Take  the  valise,  please,"  said  Nevada.  "It  weighs 
a  million  pounds.  It's  got  samples  from  six  of  dad's  old 
mines  in  it,"  she  explained  to  Barbara.  "I  calculate 
they'd  assay  about  nine  cents  to  the  thousand  tons,  but 
I  promised  him  to  bring  them  along." 

II 

It  is  a  common  custom  to  refer  to  the  usual  complica 
tion  between  one  man  and  two  ladies,  or  one  lady  and  two 
men,  or  a  lady  and  a  man  and  a  nobleman,  or  —  well,  any 
of  those  problems  —  as  the  triangle.  But  they  are  never 
unqualified  triangles.  They  are  always  isosceles  — 
never  equilateral.  So,  upon  the  coming  of  Nevada  War 
ren,  she  and  Gilbert  and  Barbara  Ross  lined  up  into  such 
a  figurative  triangle;  and  of  that  triangle  Barbara 
formed  the  hypotenuse. 


Schools  and  Schools  59 

One  morning  old  Jerome  was  lingering  long  after 
breakfast  over  the  dullest  morning  paper  in  the  city  be 
fore  setting  forth  to  his  down  town  fly-trap.  He  had 
become  quite  fond  of  Nevada,  finding  in  her  much  of  his 
dead  brother's  quiet  independence  and  unsuspicious 
frankness. 

A  maid  brought  in  a  note  for  Miss  Nevada  Warren. 

"A  messenger-boy  delivered  it  at  the  door,  please," 
she  said.  "He's  waiting  for  an  answer." 

Nevada,  who  was  whistling  a  Spanish  waltz  between 
her  teeth,  and  watching  the  carriages  and  autos  roll  by 
in  the  street,  took  the  envelope.  She  knew  it  was  from 
Gilbert,  before  she  opened  it,  by  the  little  gold  palette 
in  the  upper  left-hand  corner. 

After  tearing  it  open  she  pored  over  the  contents  for 
a  while,  absorbedly.  Then,  with  a  serious  face,  she  went 
and  stood  at  her  uncle's  elbow. 

"Uncle  Jerome,  Gilbert  is  a  nice  boy,  isn't  he?" 

"Why,  bless  the  child !"  said  old  Jerome,  crackling  bis 
paper  loudly ;  "of  course  he  is.  I  raised  him  myself." 

"He  wouldn't  write  anything  to  anybody  that  wasn't 
exactly  —  I  mean  that  everybody  couldn't  know  and 
read,  would  he  ?" 

"I'd  just  like  to  see  him  try  it,"  said  uncle,  tearing  a 
handful  from  his  newspaper.  "Why,  what " 

"Read  this  note  he  just  sent  me,  uncle,  and  sec  if  you 
think  it's  all  right  and  proper.  You  see,  I  don't  know 
much  about  city  people  and  their  ways." 

Old  Jerome  threw  his  paper  down  and  set  both  his  feet 


63  Options 

upon  it.  He  took  Gilbert's  note  and  fiercely  perused  ifc 
tvv'ice,  and  then  a  third  time. 

"Why,  child,"  said  he,  "you  had  me  almost  excited, 
although  I  was  sure  of  that  boy.  He's  a  duplicate  of  his 
father,  and  he  was  a  gilt-edged  diamond.  He  only  asks 
if  you  and  Barbara  will  be  ready  at  four  o'clock  this 
afternoon  for  an  automobile  drive  over  to  Long  Island. 
I  don't  see  anything  to  criticise  in  it  except  the  station 
ery.  I  always  did  hate  that  shade  of  blue." 

"Would  it  be  all  right  to  go?"  asked  Nevada,  eagerly. 

"Yes,  yes,  yes,  child ;  of  course.  Why  not?  Still,  it 
plcaacs  me  to  see  you  so  careful  and  candid.  Go,  by  all 
means. 

"I  didn't  know,"  said  Nevada,  demurely.  "I  thought 
I'd  ask  you.  Couldn't  you  go  with  us,  uncle?" 

"I?  No,  no,  no,  no!  I've  ridden  once  in  a  car  that 
boy  was  driving.  Never  again !  But  it's  entirely 
proper  for  you  and  Barbara  to  go.  Yes,  yes.  But  I 
will  not.  No,  no,  no,  no  !" 

Nevada  flow  to  the  door,  and  said  to  the  maid: 

**You  bet  we'll  go.  I'll  answer  for  Miss  Barbara. 
Tell  the  boy  to  say  to  Mr.  Warren,  'You  bet  we'll  go.' " 

"Nevada,"  called  old  Jerome,  "pardon  me,  my  dear, 
but  wouldn't  it  be  as  well  to  send  him  a  note  in  reply? 
Just  a  line  would  do." 

"No,  I  won't,  bother  about  that,"  said  Nevada,  gayly. 
"Gilbert  will  understand  —  he  always  does.  I  never 
rode  in  an  automobile  in  my  life;  but  I've  paddled  a 
canoe  down  Little  Devil  River  through  the  Lost  Horse 


Schools  and  Schools  61 

Cafion,  and  if  it's  any  livelier  than   chat  I'd  like  to 
know!" 

Ill 

Two  months  are  supposed  to  have  elapsed. 

Barbara  sat  in  the  study  of  the  hundred-thousand- 
dollar  house.  It  was  a  good  place  for  her.  Many  places 
are  provided  in  the  world  where  men  and  women  may 
repair  for  the  purpose  of  extricating  themselves  from 
divers  difficulties.  There  are  cloisters,  wailing-places, 
watering-places,  confessionals,  hermitages,  lawyers'  of 
fices,  beauty-parlors,  air-ships,  and  studies;  and  the 
greatest  of  these  are  studies. 

It  usually  takes  a  hypotenuse  a  long  time  to  discover 
that  it  is  the  longest  side  of  a  triangle.  But  it's  a  long 
line  that  has  no  turning. 

Barbara  was  alone.  Uncle  Jerome  and  Nevada  had 
gone  to  the  theatre.  Barbara  had  not  cared  to  go.  She 
wanted  to  stay  at  home  and  study  in  the  study.  If  you, 
miss,  were  a  stunning  New  York  girl,  and  saw  every  day 
that  a  brown,  ingenuous  Western  witch  was  getting 
hobbles  and  a  lasso  on  the  young  man  you  wanted  for 
yourself,  you,  too,  would  lose  taste  for  the  oxidized  silver 
setting  of  a  musical  comedy. 

Barbara  sat  by  the  quartercd-oak  library  table.  Her 
right  arm  rested  upon  the  table,  and  her  dextral  fingers 
nervously  manipulated  a  sealed  letter.  The  letter  was 
addressed  to  Nevada  Warren ;  and  in  the  upper  left-hand 
corner  of  the  envelope  was  Gilbert's  little  gold  palette. 


trs  Options 

It  had  been  delivered  at  nine  o'clock,  after  Nevada  had 
left. 

Barbara  would  have  given  her  pearl  necklace  to  know 
what  the  letter  contained ;  but  she  could  not  open  and 
read  it  by  the  aid  of  steam,  or  a  pen-handle,  or  a  hair-pin, 
or  any  of  the  generally  approved  methods,  because  her 
position  in  society  forbade  such  an  act.  She  had  tried 
'to  read  some  of  the  lines  of  the  letter  by  holding  the 
envelope  up  to  a  strong  light  and  pressing  it  hard 
against  the  paper,  but  Gilbert  had  too  good  a  taste  in 
stationery  to  make  that  possible. 

At  eleven-thirty  the  theatre-goers  returned.  It  was  a 
delicious  winter  night.  Even  so  far  as  from  the  cab  to 
the  door  they  were  powdered  thickly  with  the  big  flakes 
downpouring  diagonally  from  the  east.  Old  Jerome 
growled  good-naturedly  about  villainous  cab  service  and 
blockaded  streets.  Nevada,  colored  like  a  rose,  with 
sapphire  eyes,  babbled  of  the  stormy  nights  in  the  moun 
tains  around  dad's  cabin.  During  all  these  wintry 
apostrophes,  Barbara,  cold  at  heart,  sawed  wood  —  the 
only  appropriate  thing  she  could  think  of  to  do. 

Old  Jerome  went  immediately  upstairs  to  hot-water- 
bottles  and  quinine.  Nevada  fluttered  into  the  study,  the 
only  cheerfully  lighted  room,  subsided  into  an  armchair, 
and,  while  at  the  interminable  task  of  unbuttoning  her 
elbow  gloves,  gave  oral  testimony  as  to  the  demerits  of 
the  "show." 

"Yes,  I  think  Mr.  Fields  is  really  amusing  —  some 
times,"  said  Barbara.  "Here  is  a  letter  for  jo\i»  dear,, 


Schools  and  Schools  63 

that  came  by  special  delivery  just  after  you  had  gone." 

"Who  is  it  from?"  asked  Nevada,  tugging  at  a  button. 

"Well,  really,"  said  Barbara,  with  a  smile,  "I  can 
only  guess.  The  envelope  has  that  queer  little  thing 
in  one  corner  that  Gilbert  calls  a  palette,  but  which 
looks  to  me  rather  like  a  gilt  heart  on  a  schoolgirl's 
valentine." 

"I  wonder  what  he's  writing  to  me  about,"  remarked 
Nevada,  listlessly. 

"We're  all  alike,"  said  Barbara ;  "all  women.  We  try 
to  find  out  what  is  in  a  letter  by  studying  the  postmark. 
As  a  last  resort  we  use  scissors,  and  read  it  from  the 
bottom  upward.  Here  it  is." 

She  made  a  motion  as  if  to  toss  the  letter  across  the 
table  to  Nevada. 

"Great  catamounts !"  exclaimed  Nevada.  "These 
centre-fire  buttons  are  a  nuisance.  I'd  rather  wear 
buckskins.  Oh,  Barbara,  please  shuck  the  hide  off  that 
letter  and  read  it.  It'll  be  midnight  before  I  get  these 
gloves  off !" 

"Why,  dear,  you  don't  want  me  to  open  Gilbert's 
letter  to  you?  It's  for  you,  and  you  wouldn't  wish  any 
one  else  to  read  it,  of  course !" 

Nevada  raised  her  steady,  calm,  sapphire  eyes  from 
her  gloves. 

"Nobody  writes  me  anything  that  everybod}'  mightn't 
read,"  she  said.  "Go  on,  Barbara.  Maybe  Gilbert 
wants  us  to  go  out  in  his  car  again  to-morrow." 

Curiosity  can  do  more  things  than  kill  a  cat ;  and  if 


64  Options 

emotions,  well  recognized  as  feminine,  are  inimical  to 
feline  life,  then  jealousy  would  soon  leave  the  whole  world 
catless.  Barbara  opened  the  letter,  with  an  indulgent, 
slightly  bored  air. 

"Well,  dear,"  said  she,  "I'll  read  it  if  you  want  me  to." 

She  slit  the  envelope,  and  read  the  missive  with  swift- 
travelling  eyes ;  read  it  again,  and  cast  a  quick,  shrewd 
glance  at  Nevada,  who,  for  the  time,  seemed  to  consider 
gloves  as  the  world  of  her  interest,  and  letters  from  ris 
ing  artists  as  no  more  than  messages  from  Mars. 

For  a  quarter  of  a  minute  Barbara  looked  at  Nevada 
•with  a  strange  steadfastness ;  and  then  a  smile  so  small 
that  it  widened  her  mouth  only  the  sixteenth  part  of  an 
inch,  and  narrowed  her  eyes  no  more  than  a  twentieth 
flashed  like  an  inspired  thought  across  her  face. 

Since  the  beginning  no  woman  has  been  a  mystery  to 
another  woman.  Swift  as  light  travels,  each  penetrates 
the  heart  and  mind  of  another,  sifts  her  sister's  words  of 
their  cunningest  disguises,  reads  her  most  hidden  desires, 
and  plucks  the  sophistry  from  her  wiliest  talk  like  hairg 
from  a  comb,  twiddling  them  sardonically  between  her 
thumb  and  fingers  before  letting  them  float  away  on  the 
breezes  of  fundamental  doubt.  Long  ago  Eve's  son  rang 
the  door-bell  of  the  family  residence  in  Paradise  Park, 
bearing  a  strange  lady  on  his  arm,  whom  he  introduced. 
Eve  took  her  daughter-in-law  aside  and  lifted  a  classic 
eyebrow. 

The  Land  of  Nod,"  said  the  bride,  languidly  flirting 


Schools  and  Schools  65 

the  leaf  of  a  palm.  "I  suppose  you've  been  there,  of 
course?" 

"Not  lately,"  said  Eve,  absolutely  unstaggcrecL 
"Don't  you  think  the  apple-sauce  they  serve  over  there 
is  execrable?  I  rather  like  that  mulberry -leaf  tunic  ef 
fect,  dear ;  but,  of  course,  the  real  fig  goods  are  not  to  be 
had  over  there.  Come  over  behind  this  lilac-bush  while 
the  gentlemen  split  a  celery  tonic.  I  think  the  caterpil 
lar-holes  have  made  your  dress  open  a  little  in  the  back." 

So,  then  and  there  —  according  to  the  records  —  was 
the  alliance  formed  by  the  only  two  who's-who  ladies  in 
the  world.  Then  it  was  agreed  that  women  should 
forever  remain  as  clear  as  a  pane  of  glass  —  though  glass 
was  yet  to  be  discovered  —  to  other  women,  and  that  she 
should  palm  herself  off  on  a  man  as  a  mystery. 

Barbara  seemed  to  hesitate. 

"Really,  Nevada,"  she  said,  with  a  little  show  of 
embarrassment,  "you  shouldn't  have  insisted  on  mj 
opening  this.  I  —  I'm  sure  it  wasn't  mean  for  any  one 
else  to  know." 

Nevada  forgot  her  gloves  for  a  moment. 

"Then  read  it  aloud,"  she  said.  "Since  you're  already 
read  it,  what's  the  difference?  If  Mr.  Warren  has  written 
to  me  something  that  any  one  else  oughtn't  to  know,  that 
in  all  the  more  reason  why  everybody  should  know  it." 

"Well,"  said  Barbara,  "this  is  what  it  says :  'Dearest 
Nevada  —  Come  to  my  studio  at  twelve  o'clock  to-night, 
Do  not  fril.'"  Barbara  rose  and  dropped  the  note  ia 


66  Options 

Nevada's  lap.  "I'm  awfully  sorry,"  she  said,  "that  I 
knew.  It  isn't  like  Gilbert.  There  must  be  some  mis 
take.  Just  consider  that  I  am  ignorant  of  it,  will  you, 
dear?  I  must  go  upstairs  now,  I  have  such  a  headache. 
I'm  sure  I  don't  understand  the  note.  Perhaps  Gilbert 
has  been  dining  too  well,  and  will  explain.  Good  night !" 

IV 

Nevada  tiptoed  to  the  hall,  and  heard  Barbara's  door 
close  upstairs.  The  bronze  clock  in  the  study  told  the 
hour  of  twelve  was  fifteen  minutes  away.  She  ran  swiftly 
to  the  front  door,  and  tet  herself  out  into  the  snowstorm. 
Gilbert  Warren's  studio  was  six  squares  away. 

By  aerial  ferry  the  white,  silent  forces  of  the  storm 
attacked  the  city  from  bo3'ond  the  sullen  East  River. 
Already  the  snow  lay  a  foot  deep  on  the  pavements,  the 
drifts  heaping  themselves  like  scaling-ladders  against  the 
walls  of  the  besieged  town.  The  Avenue  was  as  quiet 
as  a  street  in  Pompeii.  Cabs  now  and  then  skimmed  past 
like  white-winged  gulls  over  a  moonlit  ocean ;  and  less 
frequent  motor-cars  —  sustaining  the  comparison  — 
hissed  through  the  foaming  waves  like  submarine  boats 
on  their  jocund,  perilous  journeys. 

Nevada  plunged  like  a  wind-driven  storm-petrel  on 
her  way.  She  looked  up  at  the  ragged  sierras  of  cloud- 
capped  buildings  that  rose  above  the  streets,  shaded  by 
,the  night  lights  and  the  congealed  vapors  to  gray,  drab, 
ashen,  lavender,  dun,  and  cerulean  tints.  They  were  so 
like  the  wintry  mountains  of  her  Western  home  that  she 


Schools  and  Schools  67 

felt  a  satisfaction  such  as  the  hundred-thousand-dollar 
house  had  seldom  brought  her. 

A  policeman  caused  her  to  waver  on  a  corner,  just  by 
his  eye  and  weight. 

"Hello,  Mabel !"  said  he.  "Kind  of  late  for  you  to  be 
out,  ain't  it?" 

"I  —  I  am  just  going  to  the  drug  store,"  said  Nevada, 
hurrying  past  him. 

The  excuse  serves  as  a  passport  for  the  most  sophisti 
cated.  Does  it  prove  that  woman  never  progresses,  or 
that  she  sprang  from  Adam's  rib,  full-fledged  in  intellect 
and  wiles  ? 

Turning  eastward,  the  direct  blast  cut  down  Nevada's 
speed  one  half.  She  made  zigzag  tracks  in  the  snow; 
but  she  was  as  tough  as  a  pinon  sapling,  and  bowed  to  it 
as  gracefully.  Suddenly  the  studio-building  loomed  be 
fore  her,  a  familiar  landmark,  like  a  cliff  above  some 
well-remembered  canon.  The  haunt  of  business  and  its 
hostile  neighbor,  art,  was  darkened  and  silent.  The  ele 
vator  stopped  at  ten. 

Up  eight  flights  of  Stygian  stairs  Nevada  climbed,  and 
rapped  firmly  at  the  door  numbered  "89."  She  had  been 
there  many  times  before,  with  Barbara  and  Uncle  Jerome. 

Gilbert  opened  the  door.  He  had  a  crayon  pencil  in 
one  hand,  a  green  shade  over  his  eyes,  and  a  pipe  in  his 
mouth.  The  pipe  dropped  to  the  floor. 

"Am  I  late?"  asked  Nevada.  "I  came  as  quick  as  I 
could.  Uncle  and  me  were  at  the  theatre  this  evening. 
Here  I  am,  Gilbert  1" 


68  Options 

Gilbert  did  a  Pygmalion-and-Galatea  act.  He  changed 
from  a  statue  of  stupefaction  to  a  young  man  with  a 
problem  to  tackle.  He  admitted  Nevada,  got  a  whisk- 
broom,  and  began  to  brush  the  snow  from  her  clothes.  A 
great  lamp,  with  a  green  shade,  hung  over  an  easel,  where 
the  artist  had  been  sketching  in  crayon. 

"You  wanted  me,"  said  Nevada  simply,  "and  I  came. 
You  said  so  in  your  letter.  What  did  you  send  for  me 
for?" 

"You  read  my  letter?"  inquired  Gilbert,  sparring  for 
wind. 

"Barbara  read  it  to  me.  I  saw  it  afterward.  It  said: 
'Come  to  my  studio  at  twelve  to-night,  and  do  not  fail.' 
I  thought  you  were  sick,  of  course,  but  3*ou  don't  seem 
to  be." 

"Aha !"  said  Gilbert,  irrelevantly.  "Ill  tell  you  why 
I  asked  you  to  come,  Nevada.  I  want  you  to  marry  me 
immediately  —  to-night.  What's  a  little  snowstorm? 
Will  you  do  it?" 

"You  might  have  noticed  that  I  would,  long  ago," 
said  Nevada.  "And  I'm  rather  stuck  on  the  snowstorm 
idea,  myself.  I  surely  would  hate  one  of  these  flowery 
church  noon-weddings.  Gilbert,  I  didn't  know  you 
had  grit  enough  to  propose  it  this  way.  Let's  shock 
'em  —  it's  our  funeral,  ain't  it?** 

"You  bet !"  said  Gilbert.  "Where  did  I  hear  that 
expression?"  he  added  to  himself.  "Wait  a  minute, 
Nevada ;  I  want  to  do  a  little  'phoning." 

He  shut  himself  in  a  little  dressing-roam,  and  called 


Schools  and  Schools  69 

upon  the  lightnings  of  the  heavens  —  condensed  into 
unromantic  numbers  and  districts. 

"That  you,  Jack?  You  confounded  sleepy-head i 
Yes,  wake  up;  this  is  me  —  or  I  —  oh,  bother  the  differ 
ence  in  grammar!  I'm  going  to  be  married  right  away. 
Yes!  Wake  up  your  sister  —  don't  answer  me  back; 
bring  her  along,  too  —  you  must.  Remind  Agnes  of  the 
time  I  saved  her  from  drowning  in  Lake  Konkonkoma  — 
I  know  it's  caddish  to  refer  to  it,  but  she  must  come  with 
you.  Yes!  Nevada  is  here,  waiting.  We've  been 
engaged  quite  a  while.  Some  opposition  among  the 
relatives,  you  know,  and  we  have  to  pull  it  off  this  way. 
We're  waiting  here  for  you.  Don't  let  Agnes  out-talk 
you  —  bring  her!  You  will?  Good  old  hoy!  I'll  or 
der  a  carriage  to  call  for  you,  double-quick  time.  Con 
found  you,  Jack,  you're  all  right !" 

Gilbert  returned  to  the  room  where  Nevada  waited. 

"My  old  friend,  Jack  Peyton,  and  his  sister  were  to 
have  been  here  at  a  quarter  to  twelve,"  he  explained; 
"but  Jack  is  so  confoundedly  slow.  I've  just  'phoned 
them  to  hurry.  They'll  be  here  in  a  few  minutes.  I'm 
the  happiest  man  in  the  world,  Nevada !  What  did  you 
do  with  the  letter  I  sent  you  to-day?" 

"I've  got  it  cinched  here,"  said  Nevada,  pulling  it  out 
from  beneath  her  opera-cloak. 

Gilbert  drew  the  letter  from  the  envelope  and  looked  it 
over  carefully.  Then  lie  looked  at  Nevada  thoughtfully. 

"Didn't  you  think  it  rather  queer  that  I  should  ask 
jou  to  eoine  to  my  studio  at  midnight?"  he  asked. 


70  Options 

"Why,  no,"  said  Nevada,  rounding  her  eyes.  "Not 
if  you  needed  me.  Out  West,  when  a  pal  sends  you  a 
hurry  call  —  ain't  that  what  you  say  here?  —  we  get 
there  first  and  talk  about  it  after  the  row  is  over.  And 
it's  usually  snowing  there,  too,  when  things  happen.  So 
I  didn't  mind." 

Gilbert  rushed  into  another  room,  and  came  back 
burdened  with  overcoats  warranted  to  turn  wind,  rain, 
or  snow. 

"Put  this  raincoat  on,"  he  said,  holding  it  for  her, 
"We  have  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  go.  Old  Jack  and  his 
sister  will  be  here  in  a  few  minutes."  He  began  to 
struggle  into  a  heavy  coat.  "Oh,  Nevada,"  he  said, 
"just  look  at  the  headlines  on  the  front  page  of  that 
evening  paper  on  the  table,  will  you?  It's  about  your 
section  of  the  West,  and  I  know  it  will  interest  you." 

He  waited  a  full  minute,  pretending  to  find  trouble  in 
the  getting  on  of  his  overcoat,  and  then  turned.  Nevada 
had  not  moved.  She  was  looking  at  him  with  strange 
and  pensive  directness.  Her  cheeks  had  a  flush  on  them 
beyond  the  color  that  had  been  contributed  by  the  wind 
and  snow  ;  but  her  eyes  were  steadjr. 

"I  was  going  to  tell  you,"  she  said,  "anyhow,  before 
you  —  before  we  —  before  —  well,  before  anything.  Dad 
never  gave  me  a  day  of  schooling.  I  never  Iearne4  to 
read  or  write  a  darned  word.  Now  if " 

Pounding  their  uncertain  way  upstairs,  the  feet  of 
Jack,  the  somnolent,  and  Agnes,  the  grateful,  were 
heard. 


Schools  and  Schools  71 


When  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gilbert  Warren  were  spinning 
softly  homeward  in  a  closed  carriage,  after  the  cere 
mony,  Gilbert  said : 

"Nevada,  would  you  really  like  to  know  what  I  wrote 
you  in  the  letter  that  you  received  to-night?" 

"Fire  away !"  said  his  bride. 

"Word  for  word,"  said  Gilbert,  "it  was  this:  'My 
dear  Miss  Warren  —  You  were  right  about  the  flower. 
It  was  a  hydrangea,  and  not  a  lilac.' " 

"All  right,"  said  Nevada.  "But  let's  forget  it.  The 
joke's  on  Barbara,  anyway !" 


THIMBLE,  THIMBLE 

TlIESE  are  the  directions  for  finding  the  office  of  Car- 
terct  &  Carteret,  Mill  Supplies  and  Leather  Belting: 

You  follow  the  Broadway  trail  down  until  you  pass 
the  Crosstown  Line,  the  Bread  Lino,  and  the  Dead  Line, 
and  come  to  the  Big  Canons  of  the  Moneygrubber  Tribe. 
Then  you  turn  to  the  left,  to  the  right,  dodge  a  push-cart 
and  the  tongue  of  a  two-ton  four-horse  dray,  and  hop, 
skip,  and  jump  to  a  granite  ledge  on  the  side  of  a  twenty- 
one-story  synthetic  mountain  of  stone  and  iron.  In  the 
twelfth  story  is  the  office  of  Carteret  &  Carteret.  The 
factory  where  they  make  the  mill  supplies  and  leather 
belting  is  in  Brooklyn.  Those  commodities  —  to  saj 
nothing  of  Brooklyn  —  not  being  of  interest  to  3fou,  let 
us  hold  the  incidents  within  the  confines  of  a  one-act,  one- 
scene  play,  thereby  lessening  the  toil  of  the  reader  and 
the  expenditure  of  the  publisher.  So,  if  you  have  the 
courage  to  face  four  pages  of  type  and  Carteret  &  Car- 
teret's  office  boy,  Percival,  you  shall  sit  on  a  varnished 
chair  in  the  inner  office  and  peep  at  the  little  comedy  of 
the  Old  Nigger  Man,  the  Hunting-Case  Watch,  and  the 
Open-Faced  Question  —  mostly  borrowed  from  the  late 
Mr.  Frank  Stockton,  as  you  will  conclude. 

First,  biography  (but  pared  to  the  quick)  must  inter- 

22 


Thimble,  Thimble  73 

vcr.e.  I  am  for  the  inverted  sugar-coated  quinine  pill  — 
the  bitter  on  the  outside. 

The  Carterets  were,  or  was  (Columbia  College  pro 
fessors  please  rule),  an  old  Virginia  family.  Long  time 
ago  the  gentlemen  of  the  family  had  worn  lace  ruffles 
and  carried  tinless  foils  and  owned  plantations  and  had 
slaves  to  burn.  But  the  war  had  greatly  reduced  their 
holdings.  (Of  course  you  can  perceive  at  once  that  this 
flavor  has  been  shoplifted  from  Mr.  F.  Hopkinson  Smith, 
in  spite  of  the  "et"  after  "Carter.")  Well,  anyhow : 

In  digging  up  the  Cartcrct  history  I  shall  not  take  you 
farther  back  than  the  year  1620.  The  two  original 
American  Carterets  came  over  in  that  year,  but  by  differ 
ent  means  of  transportation.  One  brother,  named  John, 
came  in  the  Mayflower  and  became  a  Pilgrim  Father. 
You've  seen  his  picture  on  the  covers  of  the  Thanksgiving 
magazines,  hunting  turkeys  in  the  deep  snow  with  a 
blunderbuss.  Blandford  Cartcret,  the  other  brother, 
crossed  the  pond  in  his  own  brigantinc,  landed  on  the 
Virginia  coast,  and  became  an  F.  F.  V.  John  became 
distinguished  for  piety  and  shrewdness  in  business; 
Blandford  for  his  pride,  juleps,  marksmanship,  and  vast 
slave-cultivated  plantations. 

Then  came  the  Civil  War.  (I  must  condense  this 
historical  interpolation.)  Stonewall  Jackson  was  shot; 
Lee  surrendered;  Grant  toured  the  world;  cotton  went 
to  nine  cents;  Old  Crow  •whiskey  and  Jim  Crow  cars 
were  invented ;  the  Seventy-ninth  Massachusetts  Volun 
teers  returned  to  the  Ninety-seventh  Alabama  Zouaves 


74  Options 

the  battle  flag  of  Lundy's  Lane  which  they  bought  at  a 
second-hand  store  in  Chelsea,  kept  by  a  man  named 
Skzchnzski ;  Georgia  sent  the  President  a  sixty-pound 
watermelon  —  and  that  brings  us  up  to  the  time  when 
the  story  begins.  My !  but  that  was  sparring  for  an 
opening!  I  really  must  brush  up  on  my  Aristotle. 

The  Yankee  Carterets  went  into  business  in  New  York 
long  before  the  war.  Their  house,  as  far  as  Leather 
Belting  and  Mill  Supplies  was  concerned,  was  as  musty 
and  arrogant  and  solid  as  one  of  those  old  East  India 
tea-importing  concerns  that  you  read  about  in  Dickens. 
There  were  some  rumors  of  a  war  behind  its  counters, 
but  not  enough  to  affect  the  business. 

During  and  after  the  war,  Blandford  Carterct,  F.  F. 
V.,  lost  his  plantations,  juleps,  marksmanship,  and  life. 
He  bequeathed  little  more  than  his  pride  to  his  surviving 
family.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  Blandford  Carteret,  the 
Fifth,  aged  fifteen,  was  invited  by  the  leather-and-mill- 
supplies  branch  of  that  name  to  come  North  and  learn 
business  instead  of  hunting  foxes  and  boasting  of  the 
glory  of  his  fathers  on  the  reduced  acres  of  his  impover 
ished  family.  The  boy  jumped  at  the  chance;  and,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-five,  sat  in  the  office  of  the  firm  equal 
partner  with  John,  the  Fifth,  of  the  blunderbuss-and- 
turkey  branch.  Here  the  story  begins  again. 

The  young  men  were  about  the  same  age,  smooth  of 
face,  alert,  easy  of  manner,  and  with  an  air  that  promised 
mental  and  physical  quickness.  They  were  razored, 
blue-sergecU  straw-hatted,  and  pearl  stick-pinned  like 


Thimble,  Thimble  75 

other  young  New  Yorkers  who  might  be  millionaires 
or  bill  clerks. 

One  afternoon  at  four  o'clock,  in  the  private  office  of 
the  firm,  Blandford  Carteret  opened  a  letter  that  a  clerk 
had  just  brought  to  his  desk.  After  reading  it,  he 
chuckled  audibly  for  nearly  a  minute.  John  looked 
around  from  his  desk  inquiringly. 

"It's  from  mother,"  said  Blandford.  "I'll  read  you 
the  funny  part  of  it.  She  tells  me  all  the  neighborhood 
news  first,  of  course,  and  then  cautions  me  against  get 
ting  my  feet  wet  and  musical  comedies.  After  that 
come  vital  statistics  about  calves  and  pigs  and  an  esti 
mate  of  the  wheat  crop.  And  now  I'll  quote  some: 

"  'And  what  do  you  think !  Old  Uncle  Jake,  who  was 
seventy-six  last  Wednesday,  must  go  travelling.  Noth 
ing  would  do  but  he  must  go  to  New  York  and  see  his 
"young  Marster  Blandford."  Old  as  he  is,  he  has  a 
deal  of  common  sense,  so  I've  let  him  go.  I  couldn't 
refuse  him  —  he  seemed  to  have  concentrated  all  his  hopes 
and  desires  into  this  one  adventure  into  the  wide  world. 
You  know  he  was  born  on  the  plantation,  and  has  never 
been  ten  miles  away  from  it  in  his  life.  And  he  was 
your  father's  body  servant  during  the  war,  and  has  been 
always  a  faithful  vassal  and  servant  of  the  family.  He 
has  often  seen  the  gold  watch  —  the  watch  that  was  your 
father's  and  your  father's  father's.  I  told  him  it  was  to 
be  yours,  and  he  begged  me  to  allow  him  to  take  it  to  you 
and  to  put  it  into  your  hands  himself. 

"  'So  he  has  it,  carefully  enclosed  in  a  buckskin  case, 


76  Options 

and  is  bringing  it  to  you  with  all  the  pride  and  impor 
tance  of  a  king's  messenger.  I  gave  him  money  for  the 
round  trip  and  for  a  two  weeks'  stay  in  the  city.  I  wish 
you  would  see  to  it  that  he  gets  comfortable  quarters  — 
Jake  won't  need  much  looking  after  —  he's  able  to  take 
care  of  himself.  But  I  have  read  in  the  papers  that 
African  bishops  and  colored  potentates  generally  have 
much  trouble  in  obtaining  food  and  lodging  in  the  Yankee 
metropolis.  That  may  be  all  right ;  but  I  don't  see  why 
the  best  hotel  there  shouldn't  take  Jake  in.  Still,  I 
suppose  it's  a  rule. 

"  'I  gave  him  full  directions  about  finding  you,  and 
packed  his  valise  myself.  You  won't  have  to  bother  with 
him ;  but  I  do  hope  you'll  see  that  he  is  made  comfortable. 
Take  the  watch  that  he  brings  you  —  it's  almost  a  decor 
ation.  It  has  been  worn  by  true  Carterets,  and  there 
isn't  a  stain  upon  it  nor  a  false  movement  of  the  wheels. 
Bringing  it  to  you  is  the  crowning  joy  of  old  Jake's 
life.  I  wanted  him  to  have  that  little  outing  and  that 
happiness  before  it  is  too  late.  You  have  often  heard 
us  talk  about  how  Jake,  pretty  badly  wounded  himself, 
crawled  through  the  reddened  grass  at  Chancellorsville 
to  where  your  father  lay  with  the  bullet  in  his  dear 
heart,  and  took  the  watch  from  his  pocket  to  keep  it 
from  the  "Yanks." 

"  'So,  my  son,  when  the  old  man  comes  consider  him 
as  a  frail  but  worthy  messenger  from  the  old-time  life 
and  home. 

*  'You  have  been  so  long  away  from  home  and  so  long 


Thimble,  Thimble  77 

among  the  people  that  we  have  always  regarded  as  aliens 
that  i'ra  not  sure  that  Jake  will  know  you  when  he  sees 
you.  But  Jake  has  a  keen  perception,  and  I  rather  be 
lieve  that  he  will  know  a  Virginia  Carteret  at  sight.  I 
can't  conceive  that  even  ten  years  in  Yankeeland  could 
change  a  boy  of  mine.  Anyhow,  I'm  sure  you  will  know 
Jake.  I  put  eighteen  collars  in  his  valise.  If  he  should 
have  to  buy  others,  he  wears  a  number  15/4.  Please 
see  that  he  gets  the  right  ones.  He  will  be  no  trouble 
to  you  at  all. 

"  'If  you  are  not  too  busy,  I'd  like  for  you  to  find  him 
a  place  to  board  where  they  have  white-meal  corn-bread, 
and  try  to  keep  him  from  taking  his  shoes  off  in  your 
office  or  on  the  street.  His  right  foot  swells  a  little,  and 
he  likes  to  be  comfortable. 

"  'If  you  can  spare  the  time,  count  his  handkerchiefs 
when  they  come  back  from  the  wash.  I  bought  him  a 
dozen  new  ones  before  he  left.  He  should  be  there  about 
the  time  this  letter  reaches  you.  I  told  him  to  go 
straight  to  your  office  when  he  arrives.' " 

As  soon  as  Blandford  had  finished  the  reading  of  this, 
something  happened  (as  there  should  happen  in  stories 
and  must  happen  on  the  stage). 

Percival,  the  office  boy,  with  his  air  of  despising  the 
world's  output  of  mill  supplies  and  leather  belting,  came 
in  to  announce  that  a  colored  gentleman  was  outside  to 
see  Mr.  Blandford  Carteret. 

"Bring  him  in,"  said  Blandford,  rising. 

John  Carteret  swung  around  in  his  chair  and  said  to 


78  Options 

Percival:  "Ask  him  to  wait  a  few  minutes  outside. 
We'll  let  you  know  when  to  bring  him  in." 

Then  he  turned  to  his  cousin  with  one  of  those  broad, 
slow  smiles  that  was  an  inheritance  of  all  the  Cartercts, 
and  said : 

"Bland,  I've  always  had  a  consuming  curiosity  to 
understand  the  differences  that  you  haughty  Southerners 
believe  to  exist  between  '3rou  all'  and  the  people  of  the 
North.  Of  course,  I  know  that  you  consider  yourselves 
made  out  of  finer  clay  and  look  upon  Adam  as  only  a 
collateral  branch  of  your  ancestry;  but  I  don't  know 
why.  I  never  could  understand  the  differences  between 
us." 

"Well,  John,"  said  Blandford,  laughing,  "what  you 
don't  understand  about  it  is  just  the  difference,  of  course. 
I  suppose  it  was  the  feudal  way  in  which  we  lived  that 
gave  us  our  lordly  baronial  airs  and  feeling  of  superior 
ity." 

"But  you  are  not  feudal,  now,"  went  on  John.  "Since 
we  licked  you  and  stole  your  cotton  and  mules  you've 
had  to  go  to  work  just  as  we  'damyankees,'  as  you  call 
us,  have  always  been  doing.  And  you're  just  as  proud 
and  exclusive  and  upper-classy  as  you  were  before  the 
war.  So  it  wasn't  your  money  that  caused  it." 

"Maybe  it  was  the  climate,"  said  Blandford,  lightly, 
"or  maybe  our  negroes  spoiled  us.  I'll  call  old  Jake  in, 
now.  I'll  be  glad  to  see  the  old  villain  again." 

"Wait  just  a  moment,"  said  John.  "I've  got  a  little 
theory  I  want  to  test.  You  and  I  are  pretty  much  alike 


Thimble,  Thimble  79 

in  our  general  appearance.  Old  Jake  hasn't  seen  you. 
since  you  were  fifteen.  Let's  have  him  in  and  play  fair 
and  see  which  of  us  gets  the  watch.  The  old  darky  surely 
ought  to  be  able  to  pick  out  his  'young  marster'  without 
any  trouble.  The  alleged  aristocratic  superiority  of  a 
'reb'  ought  to  be  visible  to  him  at  once.  He  couldn't 
make  the  mistake  of  handing  over  the  timepiece  to  a 
Yankee,  of  course.  The  loser  buys  the  dinner  this  even 
ing  and  two  dozen  15 /^  collars  for  Jake.  Is  it  a  go?" 

Blandford  agreed  heartily.  Percival  was  summoned, 
and  told  to  usher  the  "colored  gentleman"  in. 

Uncle  Jake  stepped  inside  the  private  office  cautiously. 
He  was  a  little  old  man,  as  black  as  soot,  wrinkled  and 
bald  except  for  a  fringe  of  white  wool,  cut  decorously 
short,  that  ran  over  his  ears  and  around  his  head.  There 
was  nothing  of  the  stage  "uncle"  about  him :  his  black 
suit  nearly  fitted  him ;  his  shoes  shone,  and  his  straw  hat 
was  banded  with  a  gaudy  ribbon.  In  his  right  hand  he 
carried  something  carefully  concealed  by  his  closed 
fingers. 

Uncle  Jake  stopped  a  few  steps  from  the  door.  Two 
young  men  sat  in  their  revolving  desk-chairs  ten  feet 
apart  and  looked  at  him  in  friendly  silence.  His  gaze 
slowly  shifted  many  times  from  one  to  the  other.  He 
felt  sure  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  one,  at  least,  of 
the  revered  family  among  whose  fortunes  his  life  had 
begun  and  was  to  end. 

One  had  the  pleasing  but  haughty  Carteret  air;  the 
other  had  the  unmistakable  straight,  long  family  noise. 


80  Options 

Both  had  the  keen  black  eyes,  horizontal  brows,  and  thin, 
smiling  lips  that  had  distinguished  both  the  Carteret  of 
the  Mayflower  and  him  of  the  brigantine.  Old  Jake  had 
thought  that  he  could  have  picked  out  his  young  master 
instantly  from  a  thousand  Northerners ;  but  he  found 
himself  in  difficulties.  The  best  he  could  do  was  to  use 
strategy. 

"Howdy,  Marse  Blandford  —  howdy,  suh?"  he  said, 
looking  midway  between  the  young  men. 

"Howdy,  Uncle  Jake?"  they  both  answered  pleasantly 
and  in  unison.  "Sit  down.  Have  you  brought  the 
watch?" 

Uncle  Jake  chose  a  hard-bottom  chair  at  a  respectful 
distance,  sat  on  the  edge  of  it,  and  laid  his  hat  carefully 
on  the  floor.  The  watch  in  its  buckskin  case  he  gripped 
tightly.  He  had  not  risked  his  life  on  the  battlefield 
to  rescue  that  watch  from  his  "old  marster's"  foes  to 
hand  it  over  again  to  the  enemy  without  a  struggle. 

"Yes,  suh;  I  got  it  in  my  hand,  suh.  I'm  gwinc  give 
it  to  you  right  away  in  jus'  a  minute.  Old  Missus  told 
me  to  put  it  in  young  Marse  Blandford's  hand  and  tell 
him  to  wear  it  for  the  family  pride  and  honor.  It  was 
a  mighty  longsome  trip  for  an  old  nigger  man  to  make  — 
ten  thousand  miles,  it  must  be,  back  to  old  Vi'ginia,  suh. 
You've  growed  mightily,  young  marster.  I  wouldn't 
have  reconnized  you  but  for  yo'  powerful  resemblance 
to  the  old  marster." 

With  admirable  diplomacy  the  old  man  kept  his  eyes 
roaming  in  the  space  between  the  two  men.  His  words 


Thimble,  Thimble  81 

might  have  been  addressed  to  either.  Though  neither 
wicked  nor  perverse,  he  was  seeking  for  a  sign. 

Blandford  and  John  exchanged  winks. 

"I  reckon  you  done  got  you  ma's  letter,"  went  on 
Uncle  Jake.  "She  said  she  was  gwine  to  write  to  you 
'bout  my  comin'  along  up  this  er-way." 

"Yes,  yes,  Uncle  Jake,"  said  John  briskly.  "My 
cousin  and  I  have  just  been  notified  to  expect  you.  We 
are  both  Carterets,  you  know." 

"Although  one  of  us,"  said  Blandford,  "was  born  and 
raised  in  the  North." 

"So  if  you  will  hand  over  the  watch "  said  John. 

"My  cousin  and  I "  said  Blandford. 

"Will  then  see  to  it "  said  John. 

"That  comfortable  quarters  are  found  for  you,"  said 
Blandford. 

With  creditable  ingenuity,  old  Jake  set  up  a  cackling, 
high-pitched,  protracted  laugh.  He  beat  his  knee,  picked 
up  his  hat  and  bent  the  brim  in  an  apparent  paroxysm 
of  humorous  appreciation.  The  sei/ure  afforded  him  a 
mask  behind  which  he  could  roll  his  eye  impartially 
between,  above,  and  beyond  his  two  tormentors. 

"I  sees  what!"  he  chuckled,  after  a  while.  "You 
gen'lemen  is  tryin'  to  have  fun  with  the  po'  old  nigger. 
But  you  can't  fool  old  Jake.  I  knowed  you,  Marse 
Blandford,  the  minute  I  sot  eyes  on  you.  You  was  a 
po'  skimpy  little  boy  no  mo'  than  about  fo'teen  when  you 
lef  home  to  come  No'th ;  but  I  knowed  you  the  minute 
I  sot  eyes  on  you.  You  is  the  mawtal  image  of  old  mars- 


82  Options 

ter.  The  other  gen'leman  resembles  you  mightily,  suh ; 
but  you  can't  fool  old  Jake  on  a  member  of  the  old 
Vi'ginia  family.  No  suh." 

At  exactly  the  same  time  both  Carterets  smiled  and 
extended  a  hand  for  the  watch. 

Uncle  Jake's  wrinkled,  black  face  lost  the  expression 
of  amusement  into  which  he  had  vainly  twisted  it.  He 
knew  that  he  was  being  teased,  and  that  it  made  little 
real  difference,  as  far  as  its  safety  went,  into  which  of 
those  outstretched  hands  he  placed  the  family  treasure. 
But  it  seemed  to  him  that  not  only  his  own  pride  and 
loyalty  but  much  of  the  Virginia  Carterets'  was  at  stake. 
He  had  heard  down  South  during  the  war  about  that 
other  branch  of  the  family  that  lived  in  the  North  and 
fought  on  "the  yuther  side,"  and  it  had  always  grieved 
him.  He  had  followed  his  "old  marster's  "  fortunes  from 
stately  luxury  through  war  to  almost  poverty.  And 
now,  with  the  last  relic  and  reminder  of  him,  blessed  by 
"old  missus,"  and  entrusted  implicitly  to  his  care,  he  had 
come  ten  thousand  miles  (as  it  seemed)  to  deliver  it  into 
the  hands  of  the  one  who  was  to  wear  it  and  wind  it  and 
cherish  it  and  listen  to  it  tick  off  the  unsullied  hours 
that  marked  the  lives  of  the  Carterets  —  of  Virginia. 

His  experience  and  conception  of  the  Yankees  had 
been  an  impression  of  tyrants — "low-down,  common 
trash" — in  blue,  laying  waste  with  fire  and  sword.  He 
had  seen  the  smoke  of  many  burning  homesteads  almost 
as  grand  as  Carteret  Hall  ascending  to  the  drowsy 
Southern  skies.  And  now  he  was  face  to  face  with  one  of 


Thimble,  Thimble  83 

them  —  and  he  could  not  distinguish  him  from  his 
"young  marster"  whom  he  had  come  to  find  and  bestow 
upon  him  the  emblem  of  his  kingship  —  even  as  the  arm 
"clothed  in  white  samite,  mystic,  wonderful"  laid  Ex- 
calibur  in  the  right  hand  of  Arthur.  He  saw  before  him 
two  young  men,  easy,  kind,  courteous,  welcoming,  either 
of  whom  might  have  been  the  one  he  sought.  Troubled, 
bewildered,  sorely  grieved  at  his  weakness  of  judgment, 
old  Jake  abandoned  his  loyal  subterfuges.  His  right 
hand  sweated  against  the  buckskin  cover  of  the  watch. 
He  was  deeply  humiliated  and  chastened.  Seriously, 
now,  his  prominent,  yellow-white  eyes  closely  scanned  the 
two  young  men.  At  the  end  of  his  scrutiny  he  was  con 
scious  of  but  one  difference  between  them.  One  wore  a 
narrow  black  tie  with  a  white  pearl  stickpin.  The 
other's  "four-hand"  was  a  narrow  blue  one  pinned  with 
a  black  pearl. 

And  then,  to  old  Jake's  relief,  there  came  a  sudden 
distraction.  Drama  knocked  at  the  door  with  imperious 
knuckles,  and  forced  Comedy  to  the  wings,  and  Drama 
peeped  with  a  smiling  but  set  face  over  the  footlights. 

Percival,  the  hater  of  mill  supplies,  brought  in  a 
card,  which  he  handed,  with  the  manner  of  one  bearing 
a  cartel,  to  Blue-Tie. 

"Olivia  De  Ormond,"  read  Blue-Tie  from  the  card. 
He  looked  inquiringly  at  his  cousin. 

"Why  not  have  her  in,"  said  Black-Tie,  "and  bring 
matters  to  a  conclusion?" 

"Uncle  Jake,"  said  one  of  the  young  men,  "would  you 


84  Options 

mind  taking  that  chair  over  there  in  the  corner  for  a 
while  ?  A  lady  is  coming  in  —  on  some  business.  We'll 
take  up  your  case  afterward." 

The  lady  whom  Percival  ushered  in  was  young  and 
petulantly,  decidedly,  freshly,  consciously,  and  intention 
ally  pretty.  She  was  dressed  with  such  expensive  plain 
ness  that  she  made  you  consider  lace  and  ruffles  as  mere 
tatters  and  rags.  But  one  great  ostrich  plume  that  she 
wore  would  have  marked  her  anywhere  in  the  army  of 
beauty  as  the  wearer  of  the  merry  helmet  of  Navarre. 

Miss  De  Ormond  accepted  the  swivel  chair  at  Blue- 
Tie's  desk.  Then  the  gentlemen  drew  leather-uphol 
stered  seats  conveniently  near,  and  spoke  of  the  weather. 

"Yes,"  said  she,  "I  noticed  it  was  warmer.  But  I 
mustn't  take  up  too  much  of  your  time  during  business 
hours.  That  is,"  she  continued,  "unless  we  talk  busi 
ness." 

She  addressed  her  words  to  Blue-Tie,  with  a  charming 
smile. 

"Very  well,"  said  he.  "You  don't  mind  my  cousin 
being  present,  do  you?  We  are  generally  rather  confi 
dential  with  each  other  —  especially  in  business  matters." 

"Oh,  no,"  carolled  Miss  De  Ormond.  "I'd  rather  he 
did  hear.  He  knows  all  about  it,  anyhow.  In  fact,  he's 
quite  a  material  witness  because  he  was  present  when 
you  —  when  it  happened.  I  thought  you  might  want  to 
talk  things  over  before  —  well,  before  any  action  is 
taken,  as  I  believe  the  lawyers  say." 

"Have  you  anything  in  the  way  of  a  proposition  to 
make  ?"  asked  Black-Tie. 


Thimble,  Thimble  85 

Miss  De  Ormond  looked  reflectively  at  the  neat  toe  of 
one  of  her  dull  kid  pumps. 

"I  had  a  proposal  made  to  me,"  she  said.  "If  the 
proposal  sticks  it  cuts  out  the  proposition.  Let's  have 
that  settled  first." 

"Well,  as  far  as "  began  Blue-Tie. 

"Excuse  me,  cousin,"  interrupted  Black-Tie,  "if  you 
don't  mind  my  cutting  in."  And  then  he  turned,  with  a 
good-natured  air,  toward  the  lady. 

"Now,  let's  recapitulate  a  bit,"  he  said  cheerfully. 
"All  three  of  us,  besides  other  mutual  acquaintances, 
have  been  out  on  a  good  many  larks  together." 

"I'm  afraid  I'll  have  to  call  the  birds  by  another 
name,"  said  Miss  De  Ormond. 

"All  right,"  responded  Black-Tie,  with  unimpaired 
cheerfulness ;  "suppose  we  say  'squabs'  when  we  talk 
about  the  'proposal'  and  'larks'  when  we  discuss  the 
'proposition.'  You  have  a  quick  mind,  Miss  De  Or 
mond.  Two  months  ago  some  half-dozen  of  us  went  in 
a  motor-car  for  a  day's  run  into  the  country.  We 
stopped  at  a  road-house  for  dinner.  My  cousin  pro 
posed  marriage  to  you  then  and  there.  He  was  influ 
enced  to  do  so,  of  course,  by  the  beauty  and  charm  which 
no  one  can  deny  that  you  possess." 

"I  wish  I  had  you  for  a  press  agent,  Mr.  Carteret," 
said  the  beauty,  with  a  dazzling  smile. 

"You  are  on  the  stage,  Miss  DC  Ormond,"  went  on 
Black-Tie.  "You  have  had,  doubtless,  many  admirers, 
and  perhaps  other  proposals.  You  must  remember,  too, 
that  we  were  a  party  of  merrymakers  on  that  occasion. 


86  Options 

There  were  a  good  many  corks  pulled.  That  the  pro 
posal  of  marriage  was  made  to  you  by  my  cousin  we  can 
not  deny.  But  hasn't  it  been  your  experience  that,  by 
common  consent,  such  things  lose  their  seriousness  when 
viewed  in  the  next  day's  sunlight?  Isn't  there  some 
thing  of  a  'code'  among  good  'sports' —  I  use  the  word 
in  its  best  sense  —  that  wipes  out  each  day  the  follies 
of  the  evening  previous  ?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Miss  De  Ormond.  "I  know  that  very 
well.  And  I've  always  played  up  to  it.  But  as  you 
seem  to  be  conducting  the  case  —  with  the  silent  consent 
of  the  defendant  —  I'll  tell  you  something  more.  I've 
got  letters  from  him  repeating  the  proposal.  And 
they're  signed,  too." 

"I  understand,"  said  Black-Tie  gravely.  "What's 
your  price  for  the  letters  ?" 

"I'm  not  a  cheap  one,"  said  Miss  De  Ormond.  "But 
I  had  decided  to  make  you  a  rate.  You  both  belong  to 
a  swell  family.  Well,  if  I  am  on  the  stage  nobody  can 
say  a  word  against  me  truthfully.  And  the  money  is 
only  a  secondary  consideration.  It  isn't  the  money  I 
was  after.  I  —  I  believed  him  —  and  —  and  I  liked  him." 

She  cast  a  soft,  entrancing  glance  at  Blue-Tie  from 
under  her  long  eyelashes. 

"And  the  price?"  went  on  Black-Tie,  inexorably. 

"Ten  thousand  dollars,"  said  the  lady,  sweetly. 

"Or " 

"Or  the  fulfilment  of  the  engagement  to  marry." 

"I  think  it  is  time,"  interrupted  Blue-Tie,  "for  me  to 


Thimble,  Thimble  87 

be  allowed  to  say  a  word  or  two.  You  and  I,  cousin, 
belong  to  a  family  that  has  held  its  head  pretty  high. 
You  have  been  brought  up  in  a  section  of  the  country 
very  different  from  the  one  where  our  branch  of  the  fam 
ily  lived.  Yet  both  of  us  are  Carterets,  even  if  some  of 
our  ways  and  theories  differ.  You  remember,  it  is  a 
tradition  of  the  family,  that  no  Carteret  ever  failed  in 
chivalry  to  a  lady  or  failed  to  keep  his  word  when  it  was 
given." 

Then  Blue-Tie,  with  frank  decision  showing  on  his 
countenance,  turned  to  Miss  De  Ormond. 

"Olivia,"  said  he,  "on  what  date  will  you  marry  me?" 

Before  she  could  answer,  Black-Tie  again  interposed. 

"It  is  a  long  journey,"  said  he,  "from  Plymouth  Rock 
to  Norfolk  Bay.  Between  the  two  points  we  find  the 
changes  that  nearly  three  centuries  have  brought.  In 
that  time  the  old  order  has  changed.  We  no  longer  burn 
witches  or  torture  slaves.  And  to-day  we  neither  spread 
our  cloaks  on  the  mud  for  ladies  to  walk  over  nor  treat 
them  to  the  ducking-stool.  It  is  the  age  of  common 
sense,  adjustment,  and  proportion.  All  of  us  —  ladies, 
gentlemen,  women,  men,  Northerners,  Southerners,  lords, 
caitiffs,  actors,  hardware-drummers,  senators,  hod-car 
riers  and  politicians  —  are  coming  to  a  better  under 
standing.  Chivalry  is  one  of  our  words  that  changes 
its  meaning  every  day.  Family  pride  is  a  thing  of  many 
constructions  —  it  may  show  itself  by  maintaining  a 
moth-eaten  arrogance  in  a  cobwebbed  Colonial  mansion 
or  by  the  prompt  paying  of  one's  debts. 


88  Options 

"Now,  I  suppose  you've  had  enough  of  my  monologue. 
I've  learned  something  of  business  and  a  little  of  life ;  and 
I  somehow  believe,  cousin,  that  our  great-grand-grand 
fathers,  the  original  Carterets,  would  endorse  my  view 
of  this  matter." 

Black-Tie  wheeled  around  to  his  desk,  wrote  in  a  check 
book  and  tore  out  the  check,  the  sharp  rasp  of  the  perfo 
rated  leaf  making  the  only  sound  in  the  room.  He  laid 
the  check  within  easy  reach  of  Miss  De  Ormond's  hand. 

"Business  is  business,"  said  he.  "We  live  in  a  business 
age.  There  is  my  personal  check  for  $10,000.  What 
do  you  say,  Miss  De  Ormond  —  will  it  be  orange  blos 
soms  or  cash?" 

Miss  De  Ormond  picked  up  the  check  carelessly,  folded 
it  indifferently,  and  stuffed  it  into  her  glove. 

"Oh,  this'll  do,"  she  said,  calmly.  "I  just  thought 
I'd  call  and  put  it  up  to  you.  I  guess  you  people  are 
all  right.  But  a  girl  has  feelings,  you  know.  I've  heard 
one  of  you  was  a  Southerner  —  I  wonder  whir1'  r,:^e  of 
you  it  is?" 

She  arose,  smiled  sweetly,  and  walked  to  the  door. 
There,  with  a  flash  of  white  teeth  and  a  dip  of  the  heavy 
plume,  she  disappeared. 

Both  of  the  cousins  had  forgotten  Uncle  Jake  for  the 
time.  But  now  they  heard  the  shuffling  of  his  shoes  as 
he  came  across  the  rug  toward  them  from  his  seat  in  the 
corner. 

"Young  marster,"  he  said,  "take  yo'  watch." 

And  without  hesitation  he  laid  the  ancient  timepiece 
in  the  hand  of  its  rightful  owner. 


SUPPLY  AND  DEMAND 

FlNCH  keeps  a  hats-cleaned-by-clectricity-while-yota- 
wait  establishment,  nine  feet  by  twelve,  in  Third  Avenue. 
Once  a  customer,  you  are  always  his.  I  do  not  know  his 
secret  process,  but  every  four  days  your  hat  needs  to  be 
cleaned  again. 

Finch  is  a  leathern,  sallow,  slow-footed  man,  between 
twenty  and  forty.  You  would  say  he  had  been  brought 
up  a  bushelman  in  Essex  Street.  When  business  is  slack 
he  likes  to  talk,  so  I  had  my  hat  cleaned  even  oftcner 
than  it  deserved,  hoping  Finch  might  let  me  into  some 
of  the  secrets  of  the  sweatshops. 

One  af  ternoonj  dropped  in  and  found  Finch  alone.  He 
began  to  anoint  my  headpiece  de  Panama  with  his  mys 
terious  fluid  that  attracted  dust  and  dirt  like  a  magnet. 

"They  say  the  Indians  weave  'em  under  water,"  said 
I,  for  a  leader. 

"Don't  you  believe  it,"  said  Finch.  "No  Indian  or 
white  man  could  stay  under  water  that  long.  Say,  do 
you  pay  much  attention  to  politics?  I  sec  in  the  paper 
something  about  a  law  they've  passed  called  'the  law  of 
supply  and  demand."' 

I  explained  to  him  as  well  as  I  could  that  the  reference 
was  to  a  politico-economical  law,  and  not  to  a  legal 

statute. 

89 


90  Options 

"I  didn't  know,"  said  Finch.  "I  heard  a  good  deal 
about  it  a  year  or  so  ago,  but  in  a  one-sided  way." 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "political  orators  use  it  a  great  deal. 
In  fact,  they  never  give  it  a  rest.  I  suppose  you  heard 
some  of  those  cart-tail  fellows  spouting  on  the  subject 
over  here  on  the  east  side." 

"I  heard  it  from  a  king,"  said  Finch  — "the  white 
king  of  a  tribe  of  Indians  in  South  America." 

I  was  interested  but  not  surprised.  The  big  city  is 
like  a  mother's  knee  to  many  who  have  strayed  far  and 
found  the  roads  rough  beneath  their  uncertain  feet.  At 
dusk  they  come  home  and  sit  upon  the  door-step.  I 
know  a  piano  player  in  a  cheap  cafe  who  has  shot  lions  in 
Africa,  a  bell-boy  who  fought  in  the  British  army  against 
the  Zulus,  an  express-driver  whose  left  arm  had  been 
cracked  like  a  lobster's  claw  for  a  stew-pot  of  Patagonian 
cannibals  when  the  boat  of  his  rescuers  hove  in  sight. 
So  a  hat-cleaner  who  has  been  a  friend  of  a  king  did 
not  oppress  me. 

"A  new  band?"  asked  Finch,  with  his  dry,  barren 
smile. 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "and  half  an  inch  wider."  I  had  had 
a  new  band  five  days  before. 

"I  meets  a  man  one  night,"  said  Finch,  beginning  his 
story — "a  man  brown  as  snuff,  with  money  in  every 
pocket,  eating  schweinerknuckel  in  Schlagel's.  That  was 
two  years  ago,  when  I  was  a  hose-cart  driver  for  No.  98. 
His  discourse  runs  to  the  subject  of  gold.  He  says  that 
certain  mountains  in  a  country  down  South  that  he  calls 


Supply  and  Demand  01 

Gaudymala  is  full  of  it.  He  says  the  Indians  wash  it 
out  of  the  streams  in  plural  quantities. 

"'Oh,  Geronimo!' says  I.  'Indians!  There's  no  In 
dians  in  the  South,'  I  tell  him,  'except  Elks,  Maccabees, 
and  the  buyers  for  the  fall  dry-goods  trade.  The  In 
dians  are  all  on  the  reservations,'  says  I. 

"'I'm  telling  you  this  with  reservations,'  says  he. 
'They  ain't  Buffalo  Bill  Indians ;  they're  squattier  ami 
more  pedigreed.  They  call  'era  Inkers  and  Aspics,  and 
they  was  old  inhabitants  when  Mazuma  was  king  of 
Mexico,  They  wash  the  gold  out  of  the  mountain 
streams,'  says  the  brown  man,  'and  fill  quills  with  it; 
and  then  they  empty  'em  into  red  jars  till  they  are  full ; 
*nd  then  they  pack  it  in  buckskin  sacks  of  one  arroba 
each — an  arroba  is  twenty-five  pounds — and  store  it 
in  a  stone  house,  with  an  engraving  of  a  idol  with  mar 
celled  hair,  playing  a  flute,  over  the  door.' 

"'How  do  they  work  off  this  unearth  increment?'  I 
asks. 

"  'They  don't,'  says  the  man.  'It's  a  case  of  "111  fares 
the  land  with  the  great  deal  of  velocity  where  wealth 
accumulates  and  there  ain't  any  reciprocity." 

"After  this  man  and  me  got  through  our  conversation, 
which  left  him  dry  of  information,  I  shook  hands  witf» 
him  and  told  him  I  was  sorry  I  couldn't  believe  him.  And 
a  month  afterward  I  landed  on  the  coast  of  this  Guady- 
mala  with  $1,300  that  I  had  been  saving  up  for  five  years. 
I  thought  I  knew  what  Indians  liked,  and  I  fixed  myself 
accordingly.  I  loaded  down  four  pack-mules  with  red 


92  Options 

woollen  blankets,  wrought-iron  pails,  jewelled  side-combs 
for  the  ladies,  glass  necklaces,  and  safety-razors.  I 
hired  a  black  mozo,  who  was  supposed  to  be  a  mule- 
driver  and  an  interpreter  too.  It  turned  out  that  he 
could  interpret  mules  all  right,  but  he  drove  the  English 
language  much  too  hard.  His  name  sounded  like  a 
Yale  key  when  you  push  it  in  wrong  side  up,  but  I  called 
him  McClintock,  which  was  close  to  the  noise. 

"Well,  this  gold  village  was  forty  miles  up  in  the 
mountains,  and  it  took  us  nine  days  to  find  it.  But  one 
afternoon  McClintock  led  the  other  mules  and  myself 
over  a  rawhide  bridge  stretched  across  a  precipice  five 
thousand  feet  deep,  it  seemed  to  me.  The  hoofs  of  the 
beasts  drummed  on  it  just  like  before  George  M.  Cohan 
makes  his  first  entrance  on  the  stage. 

"This  village  was  built  of  mud  and  stone,  and  had  no 
streets.  Some  few  yellow-and-brown  persons  popped 
their  heads  out-of-doors,  looking  about  like  Welsh  rab 
bits  with  Worcester  sauce  on  'em.  Out  of  the  biggest 
house,  that  had  a  kind  of  a  porch  around  it,  steps  a  big 
white  man,  red  as  a  beet  in  color,  dressed  in  fine  tanned 
deerskin  clothes,  with  a  gold  chain  around  his  neck,  smok 
ing  a  cigar.  I've  seen  United  States  Senators  of  his 
style  of  features  and  build,  also  head-waiters  and  cops. 

"He  walks  up  and  takes  a  look  at  us,  while  McClin 
tock  disembarks  and  begins  to  interpret  to  the  lead  mule 
while  he  smokes  a  cigarette. 

**  'Hello,  Buttinsky,'  says  the  fine  man  to  me.     'How 


Supply  and  Demand  93 

did  you  get  in  the  game?  I  didn't  see  you  buy  any  chips. 
Who  gave  you  the  keys  of  the  city?" 

"  'I'm  a  poor  traveller,'  says  I.  'Especially  mule- 
back.  You'll  excuse  me.  Do  you  run  a  hack  line  or 
only  a  bluff'?' 

"  'Segregate  yourself  from  your  pseudo-equine  quad 
ruped,'  says  he,  'and  come  inside.' 

"He  raises  a  finger,  and  a  villager  runs  up. 

"  'This  man  will  take  care  of  your  outfit,'  says  he,  'and 
I'll  take  care  of  you.' 

"He  leads  me  into  the  biggest  house,  and  sets  out  the 
chairs  and  a  kind  of  a  drink  the  color  of  milk.  It  was 
the  finest  room  I  ever  saw.  The  stone  walls  was  hung  all 
over  with  silk  shawls,  and  there  was  red  and  yellow  rugs 
on  the  floor,  and  jars  of  red  pottery  and  Angora  goat 
skins,  and  enough  bamboo  furniture  to  misfurnish  half 
a  dozen  seaside  cottages. 

"  'In  the  first  place,'  says  the  man,  'you  want  to  know 
who  I  am.  I'm  sole  lessee  and  proprietor  of  this  tribe  of 
Indians.  They  call  me  the  Grand  Yacuma,  which  is  to 
say  King  or  Main  Finger  of  the  bunch.  I've  got  more 
power  here  than  a  charge  d'affaires,  a  charge  of  dyna 
mite,  and  a  charge  account  at  Tiffany's  combined.  In 
fact,  I'm  the  Big  Stick,  with  as  many  extra  knots  on  it 
as  there  is  on  the  record  run  of  the  Lusitania.  Oh,  I 
read  the  papers  now  and  then,'  says  he.  'Now,  let's 
hear  your  entitlements,'  he  goes  on,  'and  the  meeting  will 
be  open.' 

"  'Well,'  says  I,  'I  am  known  as  one  W.  D.  Finch. 


94  Options 

Occupation,  capitalist.  Adrcss,  541  East  Thirty- 
second  ' 

"New  York,'  chips  in  the  Noble  Grand.  'I  know,' 
savs  he,  grinning.  'It  ain't  the  first  time  you've  seen  it 
go  down  on  the  blotter.  I  can  tell  by  the  way  you  hand 
it  out.  Well,  explain  "capitalist."  ' 

"I  tells  this  boss  plain  what  I  come  for  and  how  I 
come  to  came. 

"  'Gold-dust  ?'  says  he,  looking  as  puzzled  as  a  baby 
that  got  a  feather  stuck  on  its  molasses  finger.  'That's 
funny.  This  ain't  a  gold-mining  country.  And  you 
invested  all  your  capital  on  a  stranger's  story?  Well, 
well!  These  Indians  of  mine  —  they  arc  the  last  of  the 
tribe  of  Peches  —  are  simple  as  children.  They  know 
nothing  of  the  purchasing  power  of  gold.  I'm  afraid 
you've  been  imposed  on,'  says  he. 

"'Maybe  so,'  says  I,  'but  it  sounded  pretty  straight 
to  me.' 

"  'W.  D.,'  says  the  King,  all  of  a  sudden,  'I'll  give  you 
a  square  deal.  It  ain't  often  I  get  to  talk  to  a  v/hite 
man,  and  I'll  give  you  a  show  for  your  money.  It  may 
be  these  constituents  of  mine  have  a  few  grains  of  gold- 
dust  hid  away  in  their  clothes.  To-morrow  you  may 
get  out  these  goods  you've  brought  up  and  see  if  you  can 
make  any  sales.  Now,  I'm  going  to  introduce  myself 
unofficially.  My  name  is  Shane  —  Patrick  Shane.  I 
own  this  tribe  of  Peche  Indians  by  right  of  conquest  — 
single  handed  and  unafraid.  I  drifted  up  here  four 
years  ago,  and  won  'em  by  my  size  and  complexion  and 


Supply  and  Demand  90 

nerve.  I  learned  their  language  in  six  weeks  —  it's  easy : 
you  simply  emit  a  string  of  consonants  as  long  as  your 
breath  holds  out  and  then  point  at  what  you're  asking 
for. 

"  'I  conquered  'em,  spectacularly,'  goes  on  King 
Shane,  'and  then  I  went  at  'em  with  economical  politics, 
law,  sleight-of-hand,  and  a  kind  of  New  England  ethics 
and  parsimony.  Every  Sunday,  or  as  near  as  I  can 
guess  at  it,  I  preach  to  'cm  in  the  council-house  (I'm  the 
council)  on  the  law  of  supply  and  demand.  I  praise 
supply  and  knock  demand.  I  use  the  same  text  every 
time.  You  wouldn't  think,  W.  D.,'  says  Shane,  'that 
I  had  poetry  in  me,  would  you?' 

"'Well,'  says  I,  'I  wouldn't  know  whether  to  call  it 
poetry  or  not.' 

"  'Tennyson,'  says  Shane,  'furnishes  the  poetic  gospel 
I  preach.  I  always  considered  him  the  boss  poet. 
Here's  the  way  the  text  goes: 

"For,  not  to  admire,  if  a  man  could  learn  it,  were  more 
Than  to  walk  all  day  like  a  Sultan  of  old  in  a  garden  of  spice." 

"'You  see,  I  teach  'em  to  cut  out  demand  —  that 
supply  is  the  main  thing.  I  teach  'em  not  to  desire  any 
thing  beyond  their  simplest  needs.  A  little  mutton,  a 
little  cocoa,  and  a  little  fruit  brought  up  from  the  coast 
—  that's  all  they  want  to  make  'em  happy.  I've  got  'em 
well  trained.  They  make  their  own  clothes  and  hats 
out  of  a  vegetable  fibre  and  straw,  and  they're  a  con 
tented  lot.  It's  a  great  thing,'  winds  up  Shane,  'to  have 


96  Options 

made  a  people  happy  by  the  incultivation  of  such  simple 
institutions.' 

"Well,  the  next  day,  with  the  King's  permission,  I  has 
the  McClintock  open  up  a  couple  of  sacks  of  my  goods  in 
the  little  plaza  of  the  village.  The  Indians  swarmed 
around  by  the  hundred  and  looked  the  bargain-counter 
over.  I  shook  red  blankets  at  'em,  flashed  finger-rings 
and  ear-bobs,  tried  pearl  necklaces  and  side-combs  on 
the  women,  and  a  line  of  red  hosiery  on  the  men.  'Twas 
no  use.  They  looked  on  like  hungry  graven  images, 
but  I  never  made  a  sale.  I  asked  McClintock  what  was 
the  trouble.  Mac  yawned  three  or  four  times,  rolled 
a  cigarette,  made  one  or  two  confidential  side  remarks 
to  a  mule,  and  then  condescended  to  inform  me  that  the 
people  had  no  money. 

"Just  then  up  strolls  King  Patrick,  big  and  red  and 
royal  as  usual,  with  the  gold  chain  over  his  chest  and 
his  cigar  in  front  of  him. 

"'How's  business,  W.  D.?'  he  asks. 

"  'Fine,'  says  I.  'It's  a  bargain-day  rush.  I've  got 
one  more  line  of  goods  to  offer  before  I  shut  up  shop. 
I'll  try  'em  with  safety-razors.  I've  got  two  gross  that 
I  bought  at  a  fire  sale.' 

"Shane  laughs  till  some  kind  of  mamelukc  or  private 
secretary  he  carries  with  him  has  to  hold  him  up. 

**  'O  my  sainted  Aunt  Jerusha !'  says  he,  'ain't  you  one 
of  the  Babes  in  the  Goods,  W.  D.?  Don't  you  know 
that  no  Indians  ever  shave?  They  pull  out  their  whis 
kers  instead.' 


97 

"'Well,'  says  I,  'that's  just  what  these  razors  would 
do  for  'cm  —  they  wouldn't  have  any  kick  coming  if  they 
used  'em  once.' 

"Shane  went  away,  and  I  could  hear  him  laughing  a 
block,  if  there  had  been  any  block. 

"  'Tell  'cm,'  says  I  to  McClintock,  'it  ain't  money  I 
want  —  tell  'em  I'll  take  gold-dust.  Tell  'em  I'll  allow 
'em  sixteen  dollars  an  ounce  for  it  in  trade.  That's 
what  I'm  out  for  —  the  dust.' 

"Mac  interprets,  and  you'd  have  thought  a  squadron 
of  cops  had  charged  the  crowd  to  disperse  it.  Every 
uncle's  nephew  and  aunt's  niece  of  'em  faded  away  inside 
of  two  minutes. 

"At  the  royal  palace  that  night  me  and  the  King 
talked  it  over. 

"  'They've  got  the  dust  hid  out  somewhere,'  says  I, 
'or  they  wouldn't  have  been  so  sensitive  about  it.' 

"  'They  haven't,'  says  Shane.  'What's  this  gag  you've 
got  about  gold?  You  been  reading  Edward  Allan  Foe? 
They  ain't  got  any  gold.' 

"  'They  put  it  in  quills,'  says  I,  'and  then  they  empty 
it  in  jars,  and  then  into  sacks  of  twenty-five  pounds 
each.  I  got  it  straight.' 

"  'W.  D.,'  says  Shane,  laughing  and  chewing  his  cigar, 
'I  don't  often  see  a  white  man,  and  I  feel  like  putting  you 
on.  I  don't  think  you'll  get  away  from  here  alive,  any 
how,  so  I'm  going  to  tell  you.  Come  over  here.' 

"He  draws  aside  a  silk  fibre  curtain  in  a  corner  of  the 
room  and  shows  me  a  pile  of  buckskin  sacks. 


98  Options 

"'Forty  of  'em,'  says  Shane.  'One  arroba  in  each 
one.  In  round  numbers,  $220,000  worth  of  gold-dust 
you  see  there.  It's  all  mine.  It  belongs  to  the  Grand 
Yacuma.  They  bring  it  all  to  me.  Two  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  dollars  —  think  of  that,  you  glass-bead 
peddler,'  says  Shane — 'and  all  mine.' 

'*  'Little  good  it  does  you,'  says  I,  contemptuously  and 
hatefully.  'And  so  you  are  the  government  depository 
of  this  gang  of  moneyless  money-makers?  Don't  you 
pay  enough  interest  on  it  to  enable  one  of  3rour  deposit 
ors  to  buy  an  Augusta  (Maine)  Pullman  carbon  diamond 
\rorth  $200  for  $4.85?' 

"  'Listen,'  says  Patrick  Shane,  with  the  sweat  coming 
out  on  his  brow.  'I'm  confidant  with  you,  as  you  have, 
somehow,  enlisted  my  regards.  Did  you  ever,'  he  says, 
*feel  the  avoirdupois  power  of  gold  —  not  the  troy  weight 
of  it,  but  the  sixteen-ounces-to-the-pound  force  of  it?' 

"  'Never,'  says  I.     'I  never  take  in  any  bad  money.' 

"Shane  drops  down  on  the  floor  and  throws  his  arms 
over  the  sacks  of  gold-dust. 

"  'I  love  it,'  says  he.  'I  want  to  feel  the  touch  of  it 
day  and  night.  It's  my  pleasure  in  life.  I  come  in  this 
room,  and  I'm  a  king  and  a  rich  man.  I'll  be  a  million 
aire  in  another  year.  The  pile's  getting  bigger  every 
month.  I've  got  the  whole  tribe  washing  out  the  sands 
in  the  creeks.  I'm  the  happiest  man  in  the  world,  W.  D. 
I  just  want  to  be  near  this  gold,  and  know  it's  mine 
and  it's  increasing  every  day.  Now,  you  know,'  says  he, 
'why  my  Indians  wouldn't  buy  your  goods.  They 


Supply  and  Demand  99 

They  bring  all  the  dust  to  me.  I'm  their  king.  I've 
taught  'em  not  to  desire  or  admire.  You  might  as  well 
shut  up  shop.' 

"  'I'll  tell  you  what  you  are,'  says  I.  'You're  a  plain, 
contemptible  miser.  You  preach  supply  and  you  forget 
demand.  Now,  supply,'  I  goes  on,  'is  never  anything 
but  supply.  On  the  contrary,'  says  I,  'demand  is  a  much 
broader  syllogism  and  assertion.  Demand  includes  the 
rights  of  our  women  and  children,  and  charity  and 
friendship,  and  even  a  little  begging  on  the  street  corners. 
They've  both  got  to  harmonize  equally.  And  I've  got  a 
few  things  up  my  commercial  sleeve  yet,'  says  I,  'that 
may  jostle  your  preconceived  ideas  of  politics  and  eco 
nomy.' 

"The  next  morning  I  had  McClintock  bring  up  an 
other  mule-load  of  goods  to  the  plaza  and  open  it  up. 
The  people  gathered  around  the  same  as  before. 

"I  got  out  the  finest  line  of  necklaces,  bracelets,  hair- 
combs,  and  earrings  that  I  carried,  and  had  the  women 
put  'em  on.  And  then  I  played  trumps. 

"Out  of  my  last  pack  I  opened  up  a  half  gross  of  hand- 
mirrors,  with  solid  tinfoil  backs,  and  passed  'cm  around 
among  the  ladies.  That  was  the  first  introduction  of 
looking-glasses  among  the  Peche  Indians. 

'"Shane  walks  by  with  his  big  laugh. 

'"Business  looking  up  any?'  he  asks. 

"  'It's  looking  at  itself  right  now,'  says  1. 

"By-and-by  a  kind  of  a  murmur  goes  through  the 
crowd.  The  women  had  looked  into  the  magic  crystal 


100  Options 

and  seen  that  they  were  beautiful,  and  was  confiding  the 
secret  to  the  men.  The  men  seemed  to  be  urging  the 
lack  of  money  and  the  hard  times  just  before  the  election^ 
but  their  excuses  didn't  go. 

"Then,  was  my  time. 

"I  called  McClintock  away  from  an  animated  conver 
sation  with  his  mules  and  told  him  to  do  some  interpret 
ing. 

"  'Tell  'em,'  says  I,  'that  gold-dust  will  buy  for  them 
these  befitting  ornaments  for  kings  and  queens  of  the 
earth.  Tell  'cm  the  yellow  sand  they  wash  out  of  the 
waters  for  the  High  Sanctified  Yacomay  and  Chop  Suey 
of  the  tribe  will  buy  the  precious  jewels  and  charms  that 
will  make  them  beautiful  and  preserve  and  pickle  them 
from  evil  spirits.  Tell  'em  the  Pittsburgh  banks  are 
paying  four  per  cent,  interest  on  deposits  by  mail,  while 
this  get-rich-frequently  custodian  of  the  public  funds 
ain't  even  paying  attention.  Keep  telling  'cm,  Mac,' 
says  I,  'to  let  the  gold-dust  family  do  their  work.  Talk 
to  'cm  like  a  born  anti-Bryanite,'  says  I.  'Remind  'em 
that  Tom  Watson's  gone  back  to  Georgia,'  says  I. 

"McClintock  waves  his  hand  affectionately  at  one  of 
his  mules,  and  then  hurls  a  few  stickfuls  of  minion  type 
at  the  mob  of  shoppers. 

"A  gutta-percha  Indian  man,  with  a  lady  hanging  on 
his  arm,  with  three  strings  of  my  fish-scale  jewelry  and 
imitation  marble  beads  around  her  neck,  stands  up  on  a 
block  of  stone  and  makes  a  talk  that  sounds  like  a  man 
shaking  dice  in  a  box  to  fill  aces  and  sixes. 


Supply  and  Demand  101 

"'He  says,'  says  McClintock,  'that  the  people  not 
know  that  gold-dust  will  buy  their  things.  The  women 
very  mad.  The  Grand  Yacuma  tell  them  it  no  good 
but  for  keep  to  make  bad  spirits  keep  away.' 

"  'You  can't  keep  bad  spirits  away  from  money,'  says 
I. 

"They  say,'  goes  on  McClintock,  'the  Yacuma  fool 
them.  They  raise  plenty  row.' 

"'Going!  Going!'  says  I.  'Gold-dust  or  cash  takes 
the  entire  stock.  The  dust  weighed  before  you,  and 
taken  at  sixteen  dollars  the  ounce  —  the  highest  price 
on  the  Gaudymala  coast.' 

"Then  the  crowd  disperses  all  of  a  sudden,  and  I  don't 
know  what's  up.  Mac  and  me  packs  away  the  hand- 
mirrors  and  jewelry  they  had  handed  back  to  us,  and  we 
had  the  mules  back  to  the  corral  they  had  set  apart  for 
our  garage. 

"While  we  was  there  we  hear  great  noises  of  shouting, 
and  down  across  the  plaza  runs  Patrick  Shane,  hotfoot, 
with  his  clothes  ripped  half  off,  and  scratches  on  his 
face  like  a  cat  had  fought  him  hard  for  every  one  of 
its  lives. 

"  'They're  looting  the  treasury,  W.  D.,'  he  sings  out. 
They're  going  to  kill  me  and  you,  too.  Unlimber  a 
couple  of  mules  at  once.  We'll  have  to  make  a  get 
away  in  a  couple  of  minutes.' 

'"They've  found  out,'  says  I,  'the  truth  about  the 
law  of  supply  and  demand.' 


102  Options 

"  'It's  the  women,  mostly ,'  says  the  King.  'And  they 
used  to  admire  me  so !' 

"  'They  hadn't  seen  looking-glasses  then,'  says  I. 

"  'They've  got  knives  and  hatchets,'  says  Shane ; 
'hurry !' ~ 

**  'Take  that  roan  mule,'  says  I.  'You  and  your  law 
of  supply  !  I'll  ride  the  dun,  for  he's  two  knots  per  hour 
the  faster.  The  roan  has  a  stiff  knee,  but  he  may  make 
it,'  says  I.  'If  you'd  included  reciprocity  in  your  polit 
ical  platform  I  might  have  given  you  the  dun,'  says  I. 

"Shane  and  McClintock  and  me  mounted  our  mules 
and  rode  across  the  rawhide  bridge  just  as  the  Peches 
reached  the  other  side  and  began  firing  stones  and  long 
knives  at  us.  We  cut  the  thongs  that  held  up  our  end 
of  the  bridge  and  headed  for  the  coast." 

A  tall,  bulky  policeman  came  into  Finch's  shop  at  that 
moment  and  leaned  an  elbow  on  the  showcase.  Finch 
nodded  at  him  friendly. 

"I  heard  down  at  Casey's,"  said  the  cop,  in  rumbling, 
husky  tones,  "that  there  was  going  to  be  a  picnic  of  the 
Hat-Cleaners'  Union  over  at  Bergen  Beach,  Sunday.  Is 
that  right?" 

"Sure,"  said  Finch.     "There'll  be  a  dandy  time." 
"Gimme  five  tickets,"  said  the  cop,  throwing  a  five- 
dollar  bill  on  the  showcase. 

"Why,"  said  Finch,  "ain't  you  going  it  a  little  too — " 
"Go  to  h — !"  said  the  cop.     "You  got  'em  to  sell,, 


Supply  and  Demand  103 

ain't  you?  Somebody's  got  to  buy  'cm.  Wish  I  could 
go  along." 

I  was  glad  to  sec  Finch  so  well  thought  of  in  his  neigh 
borhood. 

And  then  in  came  a  wee  girl  of  seven,  with  dirty  face 
and  pure  blue  eyes  and  a  smutched  and  insufficient  dress. 

"Mamma  says,"  she  recited  shrilly,  "that  you  must 
give  me  eighty  cents  for  the  grocer  and  nineteen  for  the 
milkman  and  five  cents  for  me  to  buy  hokey-pokey  with 
—  but  she  didn't  say  that,"  the  elf  concluded,  with  a 
hopeful  but  honest  grin. 

Finch  shelled  out  the  money,  counting  it  twice,  but  I 
noticed  that  the  total  sum  that  the  small  girl  received 
was  one  dollar  and  four  cents. 

"That's  the  right  kind  of  a  law,"  remarked  Finch  as 
he  carefully  broke  some  of  the  stitches  of  my  hatband  so 
that  it  would  assuredly  come  off  within  a  few  days  — 
"the  law  of  supply  and  demand.  But  they've  both  got 
to  work  together.  I'll  bet,"  he  went  on,  with  his  dry 
smile,  "she'll  get  jelly  beans  with  that  nickel  —  she  likes 
'em.  What's  supply  if  there's  no  demand  for  it?" 

"What  ever  became  of  the  King?"  I  asked,  curiously. 

"Oh,  I  might  have  told  you,"  said  Finch.  "That  was 
Shane  came  in  and  bought  the  tickets.  He  came  back 
with  me,  and  lie's  on  the  force  now." 


BURIED  TREASURE 

1  HERE  are  many  kinds  of  fools.  Now,  will  everybody 
please  sit  still  until  they  are  called  upon  specifically  to 
rise  ? 

I  had  been  every  kind  of  fool  except  one.  I  had  ex 
pended  my  patrimony,  pretended  my  matrimony,  played 
poker,  lawn-tennis,  and  bucket-shops  —  parted  soon  with 
my  money  in  many  ways.  But  there  remained  one  role 
of  the  wearer  of  cap  and  bells  that  I  had  not  played. 
That  was  the  Seeker  after  Buried  Treasure.  To  few- 
does  the  delectable  furor  come.  But  of  all  the  would-be 
followers  in  the  hoof-prints  of  King  Midas  none  has 
found  a  pursuit  so  rich  in  pleasurable  promise. 

But,  going  back  from  my  theme  a  while  —  as  lame 
pens  must  do  —  I  was  a  fool  of  the  sentimental  sort.  I 
saw  May  Martha  Mangum,  and  was  hers.  She  was 
eighteen,  the  color  of  the  white  ivory  keys  of  a  new  piano, 
beautiful,  and  possessed  by  the  exquisite  solemnity  and 
pathetic  witchery  of  an  unsophisticated  angel  doomed  to 
live  in  a  small,  dull,  Texas  prairie-town.  She  had  a 
spirit  and  charm  that  could  have  enabled  her  to  pluck 
rubies  like  raspberries  from  the  crown  of  Belgium  or 
any  other  sporty  kingdom,  but  she  did  not  know  it,  and 
I  did  not  paint  the  picture  for  her. 

You  see,  I  wanted  May  Martha  Mangum  for  to  ha.ve 

104 


Buried  Treasure  105 

and  to  hold.  I  wanted  her  to  abide  with  me,  and  put  my 
slippers  and  pipe  away  every  day  in  places  where  they 
cannot  be  found  of  evenings. 

May  Martha's  father  was  a  man  hidden  behind  whis 
kers  and  spectacles.  He  lived  for  bugs  and  butterflies 
and  all  insects  that  fly  or  crawl  or  buzz  or  get  down  your 
back  or  in  the  butter.  He  was  an  etymologist,  or  words 
to  that  effect.  He  spent  his  life  seining  the  air  for  flying 
fish  of  the  June-bug  order,  and  then  sticking  pins 
through  'em  and  calling  'em  names. 

He  and  May  Martha  were  the  whole  family.  He  prized 
her  highly  as  a  fine  specimen  of  the  racibus  humanus  be 
cause  she  saw  that  he  had  food  at  times,  and  put  his 
clothes  on  right  side  before,  and  kept  his  alcohol-bottles 
filled.  Scientists,  they  say,  are  apt  to  be  absent-minded. 

There  was  another  besides  myself  who  thought  May 
Martha  Mangum  one  to  be  desired.  That  was  Goodloe 
Banks,  a  young  man  just  home  from  college.  He  had 
all  the  attainments  to  be  found  in  books  —  Latin,  Greek, 
philosophy,  and  especially  the  higher  branches  of  mathe 
matics  and  logic. 

If  it  hadn't  been  for  his  habit  of  pouring  out  this  in 
formation  and  learning  on  every  one  that  he  addressed, 
I'd  have  liked  him  pretty  well.  But,  even  as  it  was,  he 
and  I  were,  you  would  have  thought,  great  pals. 

We  got  together  every  time  we  could  because  each  of 
us  wanted  to  pump  the  other  for  whatever  straws  we 
could  find  which  way  the  wind  blew  from  the  heart  of  May 
Martha  Mangum  —  rather  a  mixed  metaphor;  Goodloe 


106  Options 

Banks  would  never  have  been  guilty  of  that.  That  is 
the  way  of  rivals. 

You  might  say  that  Goodloc  ran  to  books,  manners, 
culture,  rowing,  intellect,  and  clothes.  I  would  have  put 
you  in  mind  more  of  baseball  and  Friday-night  debating 
societies  —  by  way  of  culture  —  and  maybe  of  a  good 
horseback  rider. 

But  in  our  talks  together,  and  in  our  visits  and  conver 
sation  with  May  Martha,  neither  Goodloe  Banks  nor  I 
could  find  out  which  one  of  us  she  preferred.  May 
Martha  was  a  natural-born  non-committal,  and  knew  in 
her  cradle  how  to  keep  people  guessing. 

As  I  said,  old  man  Mangum  was  absent-minded. 
After  a  long  time  he  found  out  one  day  —  a  little  butter 
fly  must  have  told  him  —  that  two  young  men  were 
trying  to  throw  a  net  over  the  head  of  the  young  person, 
a  daughter,  or  some  such  technical  appendage,  who 
looked  after  his  comforts. 

I  never  knew  scientists  could  rise  to  such  occasions. 
Old  Mangum  orally  labelled  and  classified  Goodloe  and 
myself  easily  among  the  lowest  orders  of  the  vertebrates  ; 
and  in  English,  too,  without  going  any  further  into  Latin 
than  the  simple  references  to  Orgetorix,  Rex  Helretii  — 
which  is  as  far  as  I  ever  went,  myself.  And  he  told  us 
that  if  he  ever  caught  us  around  his  house  again  he 
would  add  us  to  his  collection. 

Goodloe  Banks  and  I  remained  awa}'  five  days,  expect 
ing  the  storm  to  subside.  When  we  dared  to  call  at  the 
house  again  May  Martha  Mangum  and  her  father  were 


Buried  Treasure  107 

gone.  Gone!  The  house  they  had  rented  was  closed. 
Their  little  store  of  goods  and  chattels  was  gone  also. 

And  not  a  word  of  farewell  to  cither  of  us  from  May 
Martha  —  not  a  white,  fluttering  note  pinned  to  the 
hawthorn-bush ;  not  a  chalk-mark  on  the  gate-post  nor 
a  postcard  in  the  post-office  to  give  us  a  clew. 

For  two  months  Goodloe  Banks  and  I  —  separately  — 
tried  every  scheme  we  could  think  of  to  track  the  run 
aways.  We  used  our  friendship  and  influence  with  the 
ticket-agent,  with  livery-stable  men,  railroad  conductors, 
and  our  one  lone,  lorn  constable,  but  without  results. 

Then  we  became  better  friends  and  worse  enemies 
than  ever.  We  forgathered  in  the  back  room  of  Snyder's 
saloon  every  afternoon  after  -work,  and  played  dominoes, 
and  laid  conversational  traps  to  find  out  from  each  other 
if  anything  had  been  discovered.  That  is  the  way  of 
rivals. 

Now,  Goodloe  Banks  had  a  sarcastic  way  of  display 
ing  his  own  learning  and  putting  me  in  the  class  that  was 
reading  "Poor  Jane  Ray,  her  bird  is  dead,  she  cannot 
play."  Well,  I  rather  liked  Goodloe,  and  I  had  a  con 
tempt  for  his  college  learning,  and  I  was  always  regarded 
as  good-natured,  so  I  kept  my  temper.  And  I  was  try 
ing  to  find  out  if  he  knew  anything  about  May  Martha, 
so  I  endured  his  society. 

In  talking  things  over  one  afternoon  he  said  to  me: 

"Suppose  you  do  find  her,  Ed,  whereby  would  you 
profit?  Miss  Mangum  has  a  mind.  Perhaps  it  is  yet 
uncultured,  but  she  is  destined  for  higher  things  than  you 


108  Options 

could  give  her.  I  have  talked  with  no  one  who  seemed 
to  appreciate  more  the  enchantment  of  the  ancient  poets 
and  writers  and  the  modern  cults  that  have  assimilated 
and  expended  their  philosophy  of  life.  Don't  you  think 
you  are  wasting  your  time  looking  for  her?" 

"My  idea,"  said  I,  "of  a  happy  home  is  an  eight-room 
house  in  a  grove  of  live-oaks  by  the  side  of  a  charco  on  a 
Texas  prairie.  A  piano,"  I  went  on,  "with  an  automatic 
player  in  the  sitting-room,  three  thousand  head  of  cattle 
under  fence  for  a  starter,  a  buckboard  and  ponies  always 
hitched  at  a  post  for  'the  missus' — and  May  Martha 
Mangum  to  spend  the  profits  of  the  ranch  as  she  pleases, 
and  to  abide  with  me,  and  put  my  slippers  and  pipe  away 
every  day  in  places  where  they  cannot  be  found  of  even 
ings.  That,"  said  I,  "is  what  is  to  be ;  and  a  fig  —  a 
dried,  Smyrna,  Dago-stand  fig  —  for  your  curriculums, 
cults,  and  philosophy." 

"She  is  meant  for  higher  things,"  repeated  Goodloe 
Banks. 

"Whatever  she  is  meant  for,"  I  answered,  "just  now 
she  is  out  of  pocket.  And  I  shall  find  her  as  soon  as  I 
can  without  aid  of  the  colleges." 

"The  game  is  blocked,"  said  Goodloe,  putting  down  a 
domino ;  and  we  had  the  beer. 

Shortly  after  that  a  young  farmer  whom  I  knew  came 
into  town  and  brought  me  a  folded  blue  paper.  He  said 
his  grandfather  had  just  died.  I  concealed  a  tear,  and 
he  went  on  to  say  that  the  old  man  had  jealously  guarded 
this  paper  for  twenty  years.  He  left  it  to  his  family  as 


Buried  Treasure  109 

part  of  his  estate,  the  rest  of  which  consisted  of  two 
mules  and  a  hypotenuse  of  non-arable  land. 

The  sheet  of  paper  was  of  the  old,  blue  kind  used  dur 
ing  the  rebellion  of  the  abolitionists  against  the  seces 
sionists.  It  was  dated  June  14,  1863,  and  it  described 
the  hiding-place  of  ten  burro-loads  of  gold  and  silver 
coin  valued  at  three  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Old 
Rundle  —  grandfather  of  his  grandson,  Sam  —  was  given 
the  information  by  a  Spanish  priest  who  was  in  on  the 
treasure-burying,  and  who  died  many  years  before  — 
no,  afterward — -in  old  Rundle's  house.  Old  Rundle 
wrote  it  down  from  dictation. 

"Why  didn't  your  father  look  this  up?"  I  asked  young 
Rundle. 

"He  went  blind  before  he  could  do  so,"  he  replied. 

"Why  didn't  you  hunt  for  it  yourself?"  I  asked. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "I've  only  known  about  the  paper  for 
ten  years.  First  there  was  the  spring  ploughin'  to  do, 
and  then  choppin'  the  weeds  out  of  the  corn ;  and  then 
come  takin'  fodder ;  and  mighty  soon  winter  was  on  us. 
It  seemed  to  run  along  that  way  year  after  year." 

That  sounded  perfectly  reasonable  to  me,  so  I  took 
it  up  with  young  Lee  Rundle  at  once. 

The  directions  on  the  paper  were  simple.  The  whole 
burro  cavalcade  laden  with  the  treasure  started  from  an 
old  Spanish  mission  in  Dolores  County.  They  travelled 
due  south  by  the  compass  until  they  reached  the  Alamito 
River.  They  forded  this,  and  buried  the  treasure  on  the 
top  of  a  little  mountain  shaped  like  a  pack-saddle  stand- 


110  Options 

ing  in  a  row  between  two  higher  ones.  A  heap  of  stones 
marked  the  place  of  the  buried  treasure.  All  the  party 
except  the  Spanish  priest  were  killed  by  Indians  a  few 
days  later.  The  secret  was  a  monopoly.  It  looked 
good  to  me. 

Lee  Rundle  suggested  that  we  rig  out  a  camping  outfit, 
hire  a  surveyor  to  run  out  the  line  from  the  Spanish  mis 
sion,  and  then  spend  the  three  hundred  thousand  dollars 
seeing  the  sights  in  Fort  Worth.  But,  without  being 
highly  educated,  I  knew  a  way  to  save  time  and  expense. 

We  went  to  the  State  land-office  and  had  a  practical, 
what  they  call  a  "working,"  sketch  made  of  all  the  sur 
veys  of  land  from  the  old  mission  to  the  Alamito  River. 
On  this  map  I  drew  a  line  due  southward  to  the  river. 
The  length  of  lines  of  each  survey  and  section  of  land 
was  accurately  given  on  the  sketch.  By  these  we  found 
the  point  on  the  river  and  had  a  "connection"  made  with 
it  and  an  important,  well-identified  corner  of  the  Los 
Animos  five-league  survey  —  a  grant  made  by  King 
Philip  of  Spain. 

By  doing  this  we  did  not  need  to  have  the  line  run  out 
by  a  surveyor.  It  was  a  great  saving  of  expense  and 
time. 

So,  Lee  Rundle  and  I  fitted  out  a  two-horse  wagon 
team  with  all  the  accessories,  and  drove  a  hundred  and 
forty-nine  miles  to  Chico,  the  nearest  town  to  the  point 
we  wished  to  reach.  There  we  picked  up  a  deputy 
county  surveyor.  He  found  the  corner  of  the  Los  Ani 
mos  survey  for  us,  ran  out  the  five  thousand  seven  hun- 


Buried  Treasure  111 

dred  and  twenty  varas  west  that  our  sketch  called  for, 
laid  a  stone  on  the  spot,  had  coffee  and  bacon,  and 
caught  the  mail-stage  back  to  Chico. 

I  was  pretty  sure  we  would  get  that  three  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  Lee  Bundle's  was  to  be  only  one 
third,  because  I  was  paying  all  the  expenses.  With  that 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars  I  knew  I  could  find  May 
Martha  Mangum  if  she  was  on  earth.  And  with  it  I 
could  flutter  the  butterflies  in  old  man  Mangum's  dove 
cot,  too.  If  I  could  find  that  treasure! 

But  Lee  and  I  established  camp.  Across  the  river 
were  a  dozen  little  mountains  densely  covered  by  cedar- 
brakes,  but  not  one  shaped  like  a  pack-saddle.  That  did 
not  deter  us.  Appearances  are  deceptive.  A  pack- 
saddle,  like  beauty,  may  exist  only  in  the  eye  of  the  be 
holder. 

I  and  the  grandson  of  the  treasure  examined  those 
~edar-covcred  hills  with  the  care  of  a  lady  hunting  for 
the  wicked  flea.  We  explored  every  side,  top,  circum 
ference,  mean  elevation,  angle,  slope,  and  concavity  of 
every  one  for  two  miles  up  and  down  the  river.  We 
spent  four  days  doing  so.  Then  we  hitched  up  the  roan 
and  the  dun,  and  hauled  the  remains  of  the  coffee  and  ba 
con  the  one  hundred  and  forty-nine  miles  back  to  Concho 
City. 

Lee  Rimdle  chewed  much  tobacco  on  the  return  trip. 
I  was  busy  driving,  because  I  was  in  a  hurry. 

As  shortly  as  could  be  after  our  empty  return,  Good- 
ioe  Banks  and  I  forgathered  in  the  back  room  of  Snyder's 


112  Options 

saloon  to  play  dominoes  and  fish  for  information.  I  told 
Goodloe  about  my  expedition  after  the  buried  treasure. 

"If  I  could  have  found  that  three  hundred  thousand 
dollars,"  I  said  to  him,  "I  could  have  scoured  and  sifted 
the  surface  of  the  earth  to  find  May  Martha  Mangum." 

"She  is  meant  for  higher  things,"  said  Goodloe.  "I 
shall  find  her  myself.  But,  tell  me  how  you  went  about 
discovering  the  spot  where  this  unearthed  increment  was 
imprudently  buried." 

I  told  him  in  the  smallest  detail.  I  showed  him  the 
draughtsman's  sketch  with  the  distances  marked  plainly 
upon  it. 

After  glancing  over  it  in  a  masterly  way,  he  leaned 
back  in  his  chair  and  bestowed  upon  me  an  explosion 
of  sardonic,  superior,  collegiate  laughter. 

"Well,  you  are  a  fool,  Jim,"  he  said,  when  he  could 
speak. 

"It's  your  play,"  said  I,  patiently,  fingering  my 
double  six. 

"Twenty,"  said  Goodloe,  making  two  crosses  on  the 
table  with  his  chalk. 

"Why  am  I  a  fool?"  I  asked.  "Buried  treasure  has 
been  found  before  in  many  places." 

"Because,"  said  he,  "in  calculating  the  point  on  the 
river  where  your  line  would  strike  you  neglected  to 
allow  for  the  variation.  The  variation  there  would 
be  nine  degrees  west.  Let  me  have  your  pencil." 

Goodloe  Banks  figured  rapidly  on  the  back  of  an  en 
velope. 


Buried  Treasure  113 

"The  distance,  from  north  to  south,  of  the  line  run 
from  the  Spanish  mission,"  said  he,  "is  exactly  twenty- 
two  miles,  It  was  run  by  a  pocket-compass,  according 
to  your  story.  Allowing  for  the  variation,  the  point 
on  the  Alamito  River  where  you  should  have  searched 
for  your  treasure  is  exactly  six  miles  and  nine  hundred 
and  forty-five  varas  farther  west  than  the  place  you 
hit  upon.  Oh,  what  a  fool  you  are,  Jim !" 

"What  is  this  variation  that  you  speak  of?"  I  asked. 
"I  thought  figures  never  lied." 

''The  variation  of  the  magnetic  compass,"  said  Good- 
loc,  "from  the  true  meridian." 

He  smiled  in  his  superior  way ;  and  then  I  saw  come 
out  in  his  face  the  singular,  eager,  consuming  cupidity 
of  the  seeker  after  buried  treasure. 

"Sometimes,"  he  said  with  the  air  of  the  oracle,  "these 
old  traditions  of  hidden  money  are  not  without  founda 
tion.  Suppose  you  let  me  look  over  that  paper  describ 
ing  the  location.  Perhaps  together  we  might " 

The  result  was  that  Goodloe  Banks  and  I,  rivals  in 
love,  became  companions  in  adventure.  We  went  to 
Chico  by  stage  from  Huntersburg,  the  nearest  railroad 
town.  In  Chico  we  hired  a  team  drawing  a  covered 
spring-wagon  and  camping  paraphernalia.  We  had  the 
same  surveyor  run  out  our  distance,  as  revised  by  Good 
loe  and  his  variations,  and  then  dismissed  him  and  sent 
him  on  his  homeward  road. 

It  was  night  when  we  arrived.  I  fed  the  horses  and 
made  a  fire  near  the  bank  of  the  river  and  cooked  supper. 


114  Options 

Goodloc  would  have  helped,  but  his  education  had  not 
fitted  him  for  practical  things. 

But  while  I  worked  he  cheered  me  with  the  expression 
of  great  thoughts  handed  down  from  the  dead  ones  of 
old.  He  quoted  some  translations  from  the  Greek  at 
much  length. 

"Anacrcon,"  he  explained.  "That  was  a  favorite 
passage  with  Miss  Mangum  —  as  I  recited  it." 

"She  is  meant  for  higher  things,"  said  I,  repeating  his 
phrase. 

"Can  there  be  anything  higher,"  asked  Goodloe,  "than 
to  dwell  in  the  society  of  the  classics,  to  live  in  the  atmos 
phere  of  learning  and  culture?  You  have  often  decried 
education.  What  of  your  wasted  efforts  through  your 
ignorance  of  simple  mathematics?  How  soon  would  you 
have  found  your  treasure  if  my  knowledge  had  not  shown 
3Tou  your  error?" 

"We'll  take  a  look  at  those  hills  across  the  river  first," 
said  I,  "and  see  what  we  find.  I  am  still  doubtful  about 
variations.  I  have  been  brought  up  to  believe  that  the 
needle  is  true  to  the  pole." 

The  next  morning  was  a  bright  June  one.  We  were 
up  early  and  had  breakfast.  Goodloc  was  charmed. 
He  recited  —  Keats,  I  think  it  was,  and  Kelly  or  Shelley 
—  while  I  broiled  the  bacon.  We  were  getting  ready  to 
cross  the  river,  which  was  little  more  than  a  shallow 
creek  there,  and  explore  the  many  sharp-peaked,  cedar- 
covered  hills  on  the  other  side. 

"My  good  Ulysses,"  said  Goodloe,  slapping  me  on  the 


Buried  Treasure  115 

shoulder  while  I  was  washing  the  tin  breakfast  plates, 
"let  me  see  the  enchanted  document  once  more.  I  be 
lieve  it  gives  directions  for  climbing  the  hill  shaped  like 
a  pack-saddle.  I  never  saw  a  pack-saddle.  What  is  it 
like,  Jim?" 

"Score  one  against  culture,"  said  I.  "I'll  know  it 
when  I  see  it." 

Goodloe  was  looking  at  old  Bundle's  document  when 
he  ripped  out  a  most  uncollegiate  swear-word. 

"Come  here,"  he  said,  holding  the  paper  up  against  the 
sunlight.  "Look  at  that,"  he  said,  laying  his  finger 
against  it. 

On  the  blue  paper  —  a  thing  I  had  never  noticed  before 
—  I  saw  stand  out  in  white  letters  the  word  and  figures: 
"Malvern,  1898." 

"What  about  it?"  I  asked. 

"It's  the  water-mark,"  said  Goodloe.  "The  paper 
was  manufactured  in  1898.  The  writing  on  the  paper 
is  dated  1863.  This  is  a  palpable  fraud." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  said  I.  "The  Rundles  are  pretty 
reliable,  plain,  uneducated  country  people.  Maybe  the 
paper  manufacturers  tried  to  perpetrate  a  swindle." 

And  then  Goodloe  Banks  went  as  wild  as  his  education 
permitted.  He  dropped  the  glasses  off  his  nose  and 
glared  at  me." 

"I've  often  told  you  you  were  a  fool,"  he  said.  "You 
have  let  yourself  be  imposed  upon  by  a  clodhopper. 
And  you  have  imposed  upon  me." 

"How,"  I  asked,  "have  I  imposed  upon  you?" 


116  Options 

'"By  your  ignorance,"  said  he.  "Twice  I  have  dis 
covered  serious  flaws  in  your  plans  that  a  common-school 
education  should  have  enabled  you  to  avoid.  And,"  he 
continued,  "I  have  been  put  to  expense  that  I  could  ill 
afford  in  pursuing  this  swindling  quest.  I  am  done 
with  it." 

I  rose  and  pointed  a  large  pewter  spoon  at  him,  fresh 
from  the  dish-water. 

"Goodloe  Banks,"  I  said,  "I  care  not  one  parboiled 
navy  bean  for  your  education.  I  always  barely  toler 
ated  it  in  any  one,  and  I  despised  it  in  you.  What  has 
your  learning  done  for  3rou?  It  is  a  curse  to  yourself 
and  a  bore  to  your  friends.  Away,"  I  said — "away 
with  your  water-marks  and  variations  They  arc  noth 
ing  to  me.  They  shall  not  deflect  me  from  the  quest." 

I  pointed  with  my  spoon  across  the  river  to  a  small 
mountain  shaped  like  a  pack-saddle. 

"I  am  going  to  search  that  mountain,"  I  went  on,  "for 
the  treasure.  Decide  now  whether  you  are  in  it  or  not. 
If  you  wish  to  let  a  water-mark  or  a  variation  shake 
your  soul,  you  are  no  true  adventurer.  Decide." 

A  white  cloud  of  dust  began  to  rise  far  down  the  river 
road.  It  was  the  mail-wagon  from  Hesperus  to  Chico. 
Goodloe  flagged  it. 

"I  am  done  with  the  swindle,"  said  he,  sourly.  "No 
one  but  a  fool  would  pay  any  attention  to  that  paper 
now.  Well,  you  always  were  a  fool,  Jim.  I  leave  you 
to  your  fate." 

He  gathered  his  personal  traps,  climbed  into  the  mail- 


Buried  Treasure  117 

wagon,  adjusted  his  glasses  nervously,  and  flew  away  in 
a  cloud  of  dust. 

After  I  had  washed  the  dishes  and  staked  the  horses  on 
new  grass,  I  crossed  the  shallow  river  and  made  my  way 
slowly  through  the  cedar-brakes  up  to  the  top  of  the  hill 
shaped  like  a  pack-saddle. 

It  was  a  wonderful  June  day.  Never  in  my  life  had  I 
seen  so  many  birds,  so  many  butterflies,  dragon-flics, 
grasshoppers,  and  such  winged  and  stinged  beasts  of  the 
air  and  fields. 

I  investigated  the  hill  shaped  like  a  pack-saddle  from 
base  to  summit.  I  found  an  absolute  absence  of  signs 
relating  to  buried  treasure.  There  was  no  pile  of  stones, 
no  ancient  blazes  on  the  trees,  none  of  the  evidences  of 
the  three  hundred  thousand  dollars,  as  set  forth  in  the 
document  of  old  man  Rundle. 

I  came  down  the  hill  in  the  cool  of  the  afternoon. 
Suddenly,  out  of  the  cedar-brake  I  stepped  into  a  beauti 
ful  green  valley  where  a  tributary  small  stream  ran  into 
the  Alamito  River. 

And  there  I  was  startled  to  see  what  I  took  to  be  a 
wild  man,  with  unkempt  beard  and  ragged  hair,  pursuing 
a  giant  butterfly  with  brilliant  wings. 

"Perhaps  he  is  an  escaped  madman,"  I  thought;  and 
wondered  how  he  had  strayed  so  far  from  seats  of  educa 
tion  and  learning. 

And  then  I  took  a  few  more  steps  and  saw  a  vine-cov 
ered  cottage  near  the  sm*U  stream.  And  in  a  little 


118  Options 

grassy  glade  I  saw  May  Martha  Mangum  plucking  wild 
flowers. 

She  straightened  up  and  looked  at  me.  For  the  first 
time  since  I  knew  her  I  saw  her  face  —  which  was  the 
color  of  the  white  keys  of  a  new  piano  —  turn  pink.  I 
walked  toward  her  without  a  word.  She  let  the  gathered 
flowers  trickle  slowly  from  her  hand  to  the  grass. 

"I  knew  you  would  come,  Jim,"  she  said  clearly. 
"Father  wouldn't  let  me  write,  but  I  knew  you  would 
come." 

What  followed,  you  ma}'  guess  —  there  was  my  wagon 
and  team  just  across  the  river. 

I've  often  wondered  what  good  too  much  education  is 
to  a  man  if  he  can't  use  it  for  himself.  If  all  the  benefits 
of  it  are  to  go  to  others,  where  does  it  come  in? 

For  May  Martha  Mangum  abides  with  me.  There  is 
an  eight-room  house  in  a  live-oak  grove,  and  a  piano 
with  an  automatic  player,  and  a  good  start  toward  the 
three  thousand  head  of  cattle  is  under  fence. 

And  when  I  ride  home  at  night  my  pipe  and  slippers 
are  put  away  in  places  where  they  cannot  be  fou:ul. 

But  who  cares  for  that?     Who  cares  —  who  cares? 


TO  HIM  WHO  WAITS 

iHE  Hermit  of  the  Hudson  was  hustling  about  his  cave 
with  unusual  animation. 

The  cave  was  on  or  in  the  top  of  a  little  spur  of  the 
Catskills  that  had  strayed  down  to  the  river's  edge,  and, 
not  having  a  ferry  ticket,  had  to  stop  there.  The  bijou 
mountains  were  densely  wooded  and  were  infested  by  fe 
rocious  squirrels  and  woodpeckers  that  forever  menaced 
the  summer  transients.  Like  a  badly  sewn  strip  of 
white  braid,  a  macadamized  road  ran  between  the  green 
skirt  of  the  hills  and  the  foamy  lace  of  the  river's  edge. 
A  dim  path  wound  from  the  comfortable  road  up  a  rocky 
height  to  the  hermit's  cave.  One  mile  up-stream  was 
the  Viewpoint  Inn,  to  which  summer  folk  from  the  citj 
came ;  leaving  cool,  electric-fanned  apartments  that  they 
might  be  driven  about  in  burning  sunshine,  shrieking, 
in  gasoline  launches,  by  spindle-legged  Modreds  bearing 
the  blankest  of  shields. 

Train  your  lorgnette  upon  the  hermit  and  let  your  eye 
receive  the  personal  touch  that  shall  endear  you  to  the 
hero. 

A  man  of  forty,  judging  him  fairly,  with  long  hair 
curling  at  the  ends,  dramatic  eyes,  and  a  forked  brown 
beard  like  those  that  were  imposed  upon  the  West  some 
years  ago  by  self-appointed  "divine  healers"  who  suc- 

119 


120  Options 

ceeded  the  grasshopper  crop.  His  outward  vesture  ap 
peared  to  be  kind  of  gunny-sacking,  cut  and  made  into 
a  garment  that  would  have  made  the  fortune  of  a  London 
tailor.  His  long,  well-shaped  fingers,  delicate  nose,  and 
poise  of  manner  raised  him  high  above  the  class  of  her 
mits  who  fear  water  and  bury  money  in  oyster-cans  in 
their  caves  in  spots  indicated  by  rude  crosses  chipped  in 
the  stone  wall  above. 

The  hermit's  home  was  not  altogether  a  cave.  The 
cave  was  an  addition  to  the  hermitage,  which  was  a  rude 
hut  made  of  poles  daubed  with  clay  and  covered  with  the 
best  quality  of  rust-proof  zinc  roofing. 

In  the  house  proper  there  were  stone  slabs  for  seats,  a 
rustic  bookcase  made  of  unplaned  poplar  planks,  and  a 
table  formed  of  a  wooden  slab  laid  across  two  upright 
pieces  of  granite  —  something  between  the  furniture  of 
a  Druid  temple  and  that  of  a  Broadway  beefsteak  dun 
geon.  Hung  against  the  walls  were  skins  of  wild  animals 
purchased  in  the  vicinity  of  Eighth  Street  and  Univer 
sity  Place,  New  York. 

The  rear  of  the  cabin  merged  into  the  cave.  There 
the  hermit  cooked  his  meals  on  a  rude  stone  hearth.  With 
infinite  patience  and  an  old  axe  he  had  chopped  natural 
shelves  in  the  rocky  walls.  On  them  stood  his  stores  of 
flour,  bacon,  lard,  talcum-powder,  kerosene,  baking- 
powder,  soda-mint  tablets,  pepper,  salt,  and  Olivo-Cremo 
Emulsion  for  chaps  and  roughness  of  the  hands  and  face. 

The  hermit  had  hermited  there  for  ten  years.     He  was 


To  Him  Who  Waits  121 

an  asset  of  the  Viewpoint  Inn.  To  its  guests  he  was 
second  in  interest  only  to  the  Mysterious  Echo  in  the 
Haunted  Glen.  And  the  Lover's  Leap  beat  him  only  a 
few  inches,  flat-footed.  He  was  known  far  (but  not  very 
wide,  on  account  of  the  topography)  as  a  scholar  of 
brilliant  intellect  who  had  forsworn  the  world  because 
he  had  been  jilted  in  a  love  affair.  Every  Saturday 
night  the  Viewpoint  Inn  sent  to  him  surreptitiously  a 
basket  of  provisions.  He  never  left  the  immediate  out 
skirts  of  his  hermitage.  Guests  of  the  inn  who  visited 
him  said  his  store  of  knowledge,  wit,  and  scintillating 
philosophy  were  simply  wonderful,  you  know.  That 
summer  the  Viewpoint  Inn  was  crowded  with  guests.  So, 
on  Saturday  nights,  there  were  extra  cans  of  tomatoes, 
and  sirloin  steak,  instead  of  "rounds,"  in  the  hermit's 
basket. 

Now  you  have  the  material  allegations  in  the  case. 
So,  make  way  for  Romance. 

Evidently  the  hermit  expected  a  visitor.  He  carefully 
combed  his  long  hair  and  parted  his  apostolic  beard. 
When  the  ninety-eight-cent  alarm-clock  on  a  stone  shelf 
announced  the  hour  of  five  he  picked  up  his  gunny-sack 
ing  skirts,  brushed  them  carefully,  gathered  an  oaken 
staff,  and  strolled  slowly  into  the  thick  woods  that 
surrounded  the  hermitage. 

He  had  not  long  to  wait.  Up  the  faint  pathway, 
slippery  with  its  carpet  of  pine-needles,  toiled  Beatrix, 
youngest  and  fairest  of  the  famous  Trcnholme  sisters. 
She  was  all  in  blue  from  hat  to  canvas  pumps,  varying 


122  Options 

in  tint  from  the  shade  of  the  tinkle  of  a  bluebell  at 
daybreak  on  a  spring  Saturday  to  a  deep  hue  of  a 
Monday  morning  at  nine  when  the  washerwoman  has 
failed  to  show  up. 

Beatrix  dug  her  cerulean  parasol  deep  into  the  pine- 
needles  and  sighed.  The  hermit,  on  the  q.  f.,  removed  a 
grass  burr  from  the  ankle  of  one  sandalled  foot  with  the 
big  toe  of  his  other  one.  She  blued  —  and  almost  starched 
and  ironed  him  —  with  her  cobalt  eyes. 

"It  must  be  so  nice,"  she  said  in  little,  tremulous  gasps, 
"to  be  a  hermit,  and  have  ladies  climb  mountains  to  talk 
to  you." 

The  hermit  folded  his  arms  and  leaned  against  a  tree. 
Beatrix,  with  a  sigh,  settled  down  upon  the  mat  of  pine- 
needles  like  a  bluebird  upon  her  nest.  The  hermit  fol 
lowed  suit ;  drawing  his  feet  rather  awkwardly  under  his 
gunny-sacking. 

"It  must  be  nice  to  be  a  mountain,"  said  he,  with  pon 
derous  lightness,  "and  have  angels  in  blue  climb  up  you 
instead  of  flying  over  you." 

"Mamma  had  neuralgia,"  said  Beatrix,  "and  went  to 
bed,  or  I  couldn't  have  come.  It's  dreadfully  hot  at  that 
horrid  old  inn.  But  we  hadn't  the  money  to  go  anywhere 
else  this  summer." 

"Last  night,"  said  the  hermit,  "I  climbed  to  the  top  of 
that  big  rock  above  us.  I  could  see  the  lights  of  the  inn 
and  hear  a  strain  or  two  of  the  music  when  the  wind  was 
right.  I  imagined  you  moving  gracefully  in  the  arms  of 
others  to  the  dr«amy  music  of  the  waltz  amid  the  fra- 


To  Him  Who  Waits  123 

grance  of  flowers.  Think  how  lonely  I  must  have 
been !" 

The  youngest,  handsomest,  and  poorest  of  the  famous 
Trenhohne  Msters  sighed. 

"You  haven't  quite  hit  it,"  she  said,  plaintively.  "I 
was  moving  gracefully  at  the  arms  of  another.  Mamma 
had  one  of  her  periodical  attacks  of  rheumatism  in  both 
elbows  and  shoulders,  and  I  had  to  rub  them  for  an  hour 
with  that  horrid  old  liniment.  I  hope  you  didn't  think 
that  smelled  like  flowers.  You  know,  there  were  some 
West  Point  boys  and  a  yacht  load  of  young  men  from  the 
city  at  last  evening's  weekly  dance.  I've  known  mamma 
to  sit  by  an  open  window  for  three  hours  with  one  half  of 
her  registering  85  degrees  and  the  other  half  frost-bitten, 
and  never  sneeze  once.  But  just  let  a  bunch  of  ineligibles 
conr.e  around  where  I  am,  and  she'll  begin  to  swell  at  the 
knuckles  and  shriek  with  pain.  And  I  have  to  take  her 
to  her  room  and  rub  her  arms.  To  see  manima  dressed 
you'd  be  surprised  to  know  the  number  of  square  inches 
of  surface  there  are  to  her  arms.  I  think  it  must  be  de 
lightful  to  be  a  hermit.  That  —  cassock  —  or  gabar 
dine,  isn't  it?  —  that  you  wear  is  so  becoming.  Do  you 
make  it  —  or  them  —  of  course  you  must  have  changes  — 
yourself?  And  what  a  blessed  relief  it  must  be  to  wear 
sandals  instead  of  shoes  !  Think  how  ise  must  suffer  — 
no  matter  how  small  I  buy  my  shoes  they  always  pinch 
my  toes.  Oh,  why  can't  there  be  lady  hermits,  too  !** 

The  beautifulcst  and  most  adolescent  Trcnholme  sister 
extended  two  slender  blue  ankles  that  ended  in  two  enor- 


124  Options 

mous  blue-silk  bows  that  almost  concealed  two  fairy  Ox 
fords,  also  of  one  of  the  forty-seven  shades  of  blue.  The 
hermit,  as  if  impelled  by  a  kind  of  reflex-telepathic  action, 
drew  his  bare  toes  farther  beneath  his  gunny-sacking. 

"I  have  heard  about  the  romance  of  your  life,"  said 
Miss  Trenholme,  softly.  "They  have  it  printed  on  the 
back  of  the  menu  card  at  the  inn.  Was  she  very  beauti 
ful  and  charming?" 

"On  the  bills  of  fare !"  muttered  the  hermit ;  "but  what 
do  I  care  for  the  world's  babble?  Yes,  she  was  of  the 
highest  and  grandest  type.  Then,"  he  continued,  "then 
I  thought  the  world  could  never  contain  another  equal  to 
her.  So  I  forsook  it  and  repaired  to  this  mountain  fast 
ness  to  spend  the  remainder  of  my  life  alone  —  to  devote 
and  dedicate  my  remaining  years  to  her  memory." 

"It's  grand,"  said  Miss  Trenholme,  "absolutely  grand ! 
I  think  a  hermit's  life  is  the  ideal  one.  No  bill-collectors 
calling,  no  dressing  for  dinner  —  how  I'd  like  to  be  one! 
But  there's  no  such  luck  for  me.  If  I  don't  marry  this 
season  I  honestly  believe  mamma  will  force  me  into  settle 
ment  work  or  trimming  hats.  It  isn't  because  I'm  getting 
old  or  ugly ;  but  we  haven't  enough  money  left  to  butt  in 
at  any  of  the  swell  places  any  more.  And  I  don't  want 
to  marry  —  unless  it's  somebody  I  like.  That's  why  I'd 
like  to  be  a  hermit.  Hermits  don't  ever  marry,  do  they  ?" 

"Hundreds  of  'em,"  said  the  hermit,  "when  they've 
found  the  right  one." 

"But  they're  hermits,"  said  the  youngest  and  beauti- 
fufcst,  "because  they've  lost  the  right  one,  aren't  they?" 


To  Him  Who  Waits  125 

"Because  they  think  they  have,"  answered  the  recluse, 
fatuously.  "Wisdom  comes  to  one  in  a  mountain  cave 
as  well  as  to  one  in  the  world  of  'swells,'  as  I  believe  they 
are  called  in  the  argot." 

"When  one  of  the  'swells,'  brings  it  to  them,"  said  Miss 
Trenholme.  "And  my  folks  are  swells.  That's  the 
trouble.  But  there  are  so  many  swells  at  the  seashore 
in  the  summer-time  that  we  hardly  amount  to  more  than 
ripples.  So  we've  had  to  put  all  our  money  into  river  and 
harbor  appropriations.  We  were  all  girls,  you  know. 
There  were  four  of  us.  I'm  the  only  surviving  one.  The 
others  have  been  married  off.  All  to  money.  Mamma 
is  so  proud  of  my  sisters.  They  send  her  the  loveliest 
pen-wipers  and  art  calendars  every  Christmas.  I'm  the 
only  one  on  the  market  now.  I'm  forbidden  to  look  at 
any  one  who  hasn't  money." 

"But "  began  the  hermit. 

"But,  oh,"  said  the  beautifulest,  "of  course  hermits 
have  great  pots  of  gold  and  doubloons  buried  somewhere 
near  three  great  oak-trees.  They  all  have." 

"I  have  not,"  said  the  hermit,  regretfully. 

"I'm  so  sorry,"  said  Miss  Trenholme.  "I  always 
thought  they  had.  I  think  I  must  go  now." 

Oh,  beyond  question,  she  was  the  beautifulest. 

"Fair  lady "  began  the  hermit. 

"I  am  Beatrix  Tre;.'.  -me  call  me  Trix,"  she 

said.  "You  must  come  to  the  inn  to  see  me." 

"I  haven't  been  a  stone's-throw  from  my  cave  in  ten 
years,"  said  the  hermit. 


126  Options 

"You  must  come  to  see  me  there,"  she  repeated. 
"Any  evening  except  Thursday." 

The  hermit  smiled  weakly. 

"Good-bye,"  she  said,  gathering  the  folds  of  her  pale- 
blue  skirt.  "I  shall  expect  you.  But  not  on  Thursday 
evening,  remember." 

What  an  interest  it  would  give  to  the  future  menu  cards 
of  the  Viewpoint  Inn  to  have  these  printed  linos  added  to 
them :  "Only  once  during  the  more  than  ten  years  of  his 
lonely  existence  did  the  mountain  hermit  leave  his  famous 
cave.  That  was  when  he  was  irresistibly  drawn  to  the 
inn  by  the  fascinations  of  Miss  Beatrix  Trcnhohue, 
youngest  and  most  beautiful  of  the  celebrated  Trenholme 
sisters,  whose  brilliant  marriage  to " 

Aye,  to  whom? 

The  hermit  walked  back  to  the  hermitage.  At  the 
door  stood  Bob  Binkley,  his  old  friend  and  companion  of 
the  days  before  he  had  renounced  the  world  —  Bob,  him 
self,  arrayed  like  the  orchids  of  the  greenhouse  in  the 
summer  man's  polychromatic  garb  —  Bob,  the  million 
aire,  with  his  fat,  firm,  smooth,  shrewd  face,  his  diamond 
rings,  sparkling  fob-chain,  and  pleated  bosom.  He  was 
two  years  older  than  the  hermit,  and  looked  five  years 
younger. 

"You're  Hamp  Ellison,  in  spite  of  those  whiskers  and 
that  going-away  bathrobe,"  he  shouted.  "I  read  about 
you  on  the  bill  of  fare  at  the  inn.  They've  run  your  bi 
ography  in  between  the  cheese  and  'Not  Responsible  for 


To  Him  Who  Waits  127 

Coats  and  Umbrellas.'  What'd  you  do  it  for,  Hump? 
And  ten  years,  too  —  gee  wliilikins  !" 

"You're  just  the  same,"  said  the  hermit.  "Come  in 
and  sit  down.  Sit  on  that  limestone  rock  over  there ;  it's 
softer  than  the  granite." 

"I  can't  understand  it,  old  man,"  said  Binkley.  "I 
can  see  how  you  could  give  up  a  woman  for  ten  years,  but 
not  ten  years  for  a  woman.  Of  course  I  know  why  you 
did  it.  Everybody  does.  Edith  Carr.  She  jilted  four 
or  five  besides  you.  But  you  were  the  only  one  who  took 
to  a  hole  in  the  ground.  The  others  had  recourse  to 
whiskey,  the  Klondike,  politics,  and  that  similia  similibus 
cure.  But,  say  —  Ilamp,  Edith  Carr  was  j  ust  about  the 
finest  woman  in  the  world  —  high-toned  and  proud  and 
noble,  and  playing  her  ideals  to  win  at  all  kinds  of  odds. 
She  certainly  was  a  crackerjack." 

"After  I  renounced  the  world,"  said  the  hermit,  "I 
never  heard  of  her  again." 

"She  married  me,"  said  Binkley. 

The  hermit  leaned  against  the  wooden  walls  of  his  ante- 
cave  and  wriggled  his  toes. 

"I  know  how  you  feel  about  it,"  said  Binkley.  "What 
else  could  she  do?  There  were  her  four  sisters  and  her 
mother  and  old  man  Carr  —  you  remember  how  he  put 
all  the  money  he  had  into  dirigible  balloons?  Well, 
everything  was  coming  down  and  nothing  going  up  with 
'em,  as  you  might  say.  Well,  I  know  Edith  as  well  as 
you  do  —  although  I  married  her.  I  was  worth  a  million 
then,  but  I've  run  it  up  since  to  between  five  and  six.  It 


128  Options 

wasn't  me  she  wanted  as  much  as  —  well,  it  was  about 
like  this :  She  had  that  bunch  on  her  hands,  and  they 
had  to  be  taken  care  of.  Edith  married  me  t\vo  months 
after  you  did  the  ground-squirrel  act.  I  thought  she 
liked  me,  too,  at  the  time." 

"And  nov.  ?"  inquired  the  recluse. 

"We're  better  friends  than  ever  now.  She  got  a  di 
vorce  from  me  two  years  ago.  Just  incompatibility.  I 
didn't  put  in  any  defence.  Well,  well,  well,  Hamp,  this 
is  certainly  a  funny  dugout  you've  built  here.  But  you 
always  were  a  hero  of  fiction.  Seems  like  you'd  have  been 
the  very  one  to  strike  Edith's  fancy.  Maybe  you  did  — 
but  it's  the  bank-roll  that  catches  'em,  my  boy  —  your 
caves  and  whiskers  won't  do  it.  Honestly,  Hamp,  don't 
you  think  you've  been  a  darned  fool?" 

The  hermit  smiled  behind  his  tangled  beard.  He  was 
and  always  had  been  so  superior  to  the  crude  and  mer 
cenary  Binkley  that  even  his  vulgarities  could  not  anger 
him.  Moreover,  his  studies  and  meditations  in  his  re 
treat  had  raised  him  far  above  the  little  vanities  of  the 
world.  His  little  mountainside  had  been  almost  an 
Olympus,  orer  the  edge  of  which  he  saw,  smiling,  the 
bolts  hurled  in  the  valleys  of  man  below.  Had  his  ten 
years  of  renunciation,  of  thought,  of  devotion  to  an  ideal, 
of  living  scorn  of  a  sordid  world,  been  in  vain  ?  Up  from 
the  world  had  come  to  him  the  youngest  and  beautif ulest 
—  fairer  than  Edith  —  one  and  three  seventh  times 
lovelier  than  the  seven-years-served  Rachel.  So  the  her 
mit  smiled  in  his  beard. 


To  Him  Who  Waits  129 

When  Binkley  had  relieved  the  hermitage  from 
the  blot  of  liis  presence  and  the  first  faint  star  showed 
above  the  pines,  the  hermit  got  the  can  of  baking- 
powder  from  his  cupboard.  He  still  smiled  behind  his 
beard. 

There  was  a  slight  rustle  in  the  doorway.  There  stood 
Edith  Carr,  with  all  the  added  beauty  and  statelincss  and 
noble  bearing  that  ten  years  had  brought  her. 

She  was  never  one  to  chatter.  She  looked  at  the  her 
mit  with  her  large,  th'mking,  dark  eyes.  The  hermit 
stood  still,  surprised  into  a  pose  as  motionless  as  her  own. 
Only  his  subconscious  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things  caused 
him  to  turn  the  baking-powder  can  slowly  in  his  hands 
until  its  red  label  was  hidden  against  his  bosom. 

"I  am  stopping  at  the  inn,"  said  Edith,  in  low  but  clear 
tones.  "I  heard  of  you  there.  I  told  myself  that  I 
must  see  you.  I  want  to  ask  your  forgiveness.  I  sold  my 
happiness  for  money.  There  were  others  to  be  provided 
for  —  but  that  does,  not  excuse  me.  I  just  wanted  to  see 
you  and  ask  your  forgiveness.  You  have  lived  here  ten 
years,  they  tell  me,  cherishing  my  memory !  I  was  blind, 
Hampton.  I  could  not  see  then  that  all  the  money  in  the 
world  cannot  weigh  in  the  scales  against  a  faithful  heart. 
If  —  but  it  is  too  late  now,  of  course." 

Her  assertion  was  a  question  clothed  as  best  it  could  be 
in  a  loving  woman's  pride.  But  through  the  thin  dis 
guise  the  hermit  saw  easily  that  his  lady  had  come  back 
to  him  —  if  he  chose.  He  had  won  a  golden  crown  —  if 
it  pleased  him  to  take  it.  The  reward  of  his  decade  of 


130  Options 

faithfulness  was  ready  for  his  hand  —  if  he  desired  to 
stretch  it  forth. 

For  the  space  of  one  minute  the  old  enchantment  shone 
upon  him  with  a  reflected  radiance.  And  then  by  turns 
he  felt  the  manly  sensations  of  indignation  at  having  been 
discarded,  and  of  repugnance  at  having  been  —  as  it  were 
—  sought  again.  And  last  of  all  —  how  strange  that  it 
should  have  come  at  last!  —  the  pale-blue  vision  of  the 
beautifulest  of  the  Trenholme  sisters  illuminated  his 
mind's  eye  and  left  him  without  a  waver. 

"It  is  too  late,"  he  said,  in  deep  tones,  pressing  the 
baking-powder  can  against  his  heart. 

Once  she  turned  after  she  had  gone  slowly  twenty 
yards  down  the  path.  The  hermit  had  begun  to  twist 
the  lid  off  his  can,  but  he  hid  it  again  under  his  sacking 
robe.  He  could  see  her  great  eyes  shining  sadly  through 
the  twilight ;  but  he  stood  inflexible  in  the  doorway  of  his 
shack  and  made  no  sign. 

Just  as  the  moon  rose  on  Thursday  evening  the  hermit 
was  seized  by  the  world-madness. 

Up  from  the  inn,  fainter  than  the  horns  of  chland, 
came  now  and  then  a  few  bars  of  music  played  by  the  ca 
sino  band.  The  Hudson  was  broadened  by  the  night  into 
an  illimitable  sea  —  those  lights,  dimly  seen  on  its  oppo 
site  shore,  were  not  beacons  for  prosaic  trolley-lines,  but 
low-set  stars  millions  of  miles  away.  The  waters  in  front 
of  the  inn  were  gay  with  fireflies  —  or  were  they  motor- 


To  Him  Who  Waits  131 

boats,  smelling  of  gasoline  and  oil?  Once  the  hermit  had 
known  these  things  and  had  sported  with  Amaryllis  in 
the  shade  of  the  red-and-white-striped  awnings.  But 
for  ten  years  he  had  turned  a  heedless  ear  to  these  far-off 
echoes  of  a  frivolous  world.  But  to-night  there  was 
something  wrong. 

The  casino  band  was  playing  a  waltz  —  a  waltz. 
What  a  fool  he  hud  been  to  tear  deliberately  ten  years  of 
his  life  from  the  calendar  of  existence  for  one  who  had 
given  him  up  for  the  false  joys  that  wealth  — "turn  ti  turn, 
ti  turn  ti" — how  did  that  waltz  go?  But  those  years 
had  not  been  sacrificed  —  had  they  not  brought  him  the 
star  and  pearl  of  all  the  world,  the  youngest  and  bcauti- 
fulest  of 

"But  do  not  come  on  Thursday  evening,"  she  had  in 
sisted.  Perhaps  by  now  she  would  be  moving  slowly  and 
gracefully  to  the  strains  of  that  waltz,  held  closely  by 
West  Pointers  or  city  commuters,  while  he-,  who  had  read 
in  her  eyes  things  that  had  recompensed  him  for  ten  lost 
years  of  life,  moped  like  some  wild  animal  in  its  mountain 
den.  Why  should " 

"Damn  it,"  said  the  hermit,  suddenly,  "I'll  do  it !" 

He  threw  down  his  Marcus  Aurelius  and  threw  off  his 
gunny-sack  toga.  He  dragged  a  dust-covered  trunk 
from  a  corner  of  the  cave,  and  with  difficulty  wrenched 
open  its  lid. 

Candles  he  had  in  plenty,  and  the  cave  was  soon  aglow. 
Clothes  —  ten  years  old  in  cut  —  scissors,  razors,  hats, 


132  Options 

shoes,  all  his  discarded  attire  and  belongings,  were 
dragged  ruthlessly  from  their  renunciatory  rest  and 
strewn  about  in  painful  disorder. 

A  pair  of  scissors  soon  reduced  his  beard  sufficiently 
for  the  dulled  razors  to  perform  approximately  their  of 
fice.  Cutting  his  own  hair  was  beyond  the  hermit's  skill. 
So  he  only  combed  and  brushed  it  backward  as  smoothly 
as  he  could.  Charity  forbids  us  to  consider  the  heart 
burnings  and  exertions  of  one  so  long  removed  from 
haberdashery  and  society. 

At  the  last  the  hermit  went  to  an  inner  corner  of  his 
cave  and  began  to  dig  in  the  soft  earth  with  a  long  iron 
spoon.  Out  of  the  cavity  he  thus  made  he  drew  a  tin  can, 
and  out  of  the  can  three  thousand  dollars  in  bills,  tightly 
rolled  and  wrapped  in  oiled  silk.  He  was  a  real  hermit, 
as  this  may  assure  you. 

You  may  take  a  brief  look  at  him  as  he  hastens  down 
the  little  mountainside.  A  long,  wrinkled,  black  frock- 
coat  reached  to  his  calves.  White  duck  trousers,  unac 
quainted  with  the  tailor's  goose,  a  pink  shirt,  white  stand 
ing  collar  with  brilliant  blue  butterfly  tie,  and  buttoned 
congress  gaiters.  But  think,  sir  and  madam  —  ten 
years  !  From  beneath  a  narrow-brimmed  straw  hat  with 
a  striped  band  flowed  his  hair.  Seeing  him,  with  all  your 
shrewdness  you  could  not  have  guessed  him.  You  would 
have  said  that  he  played  Hamlet  —  or  the  tuba  —  or 
pinochle  —  you  would  never  have  laid  your  hand  on  your 
heart  and  said :  "He  is  a  hermit  who  lived  ten  years  in 
a  cave  for  love  of  one  lady  —  to  win  another." 


To  Him  Who  Waits  133 

The  dancing  pavilion  extended  above  the  waters  of  the 
river.  Gay  lanterns  and  frosted  electric  globes  shed  a 
soft  glamour  within  it.  A  hundred  ladies  and  gentlemen 
from  the  inn  and  summer  cottages  flitted  in  and  about 
it.  To  the  left  of  the  dusty  roadway  down  which  the 
hermit  had  tramped  were  the  inn  and  grill-room.  Some 
thing  seemed  to  be  on  there,  too.  The  windows  were 
brilliantly  lighted,  and  music  was  playing  —  music  dif 
ferent  from  the  twro-stcps  and  waltzes  of  the  casino 
band. 

A  negro  man  wearing  a  white  jacket  came  through  the 
iron  gate,  with  its  immense  granite  posts  and  wrought- 
iron  lamp-holders. 

"What  is  going  on  here  to-night?"  asked  the  hermit. 

"Well,  sah,"  said  the  servitor,  "dey  is  having  de  reg'lar 
Thursday-evenin'  dance  in  de  casino.  And  in  de  grill 
room  dere's  a  beefsteak  dinner,  sah." 

The  hermit  glanced  up  at  the  inn  on  the  hillside  whence 
burst  suddenly  a  triumphant  strain  of  splendid  harmony. 

"And  up  there,"  said  he,  "they  are  playing  Mendels 
sohn —  what  is  going  on  up  there?" 

"Up  in  de  inn,"  said  the  dusky  one,  "dey  is  a  weddin' 
goin'  on.  Mr.  Binkley,  a  mighty  rich  man,  am  marryin* 
Miss  Trenholme,  sah  —  de  young  lady  who  am  quite  de 
belle  of  de  place,  sah." 


HE  ALSO  SERVES 

IF  I  could  have  a  thousand  years  —  just  one  little 
thousand  years  —  more  of  life,  I  might,  in  that  time, 
draw  near  enough  to  true  Romance  to  touch  the  hem  of 
her  rohe. 

Up  from  ships  men  come,  and  from  waste  places  and 
forest  and  road  and  garret  and  cellar  to  maunder  to  me  in 
strangcty  distributed  words  of  the  tilings  they  have  seen 
and  considered.  The  recording  of  their  tales  is  no  more 
than  a  matter  of  cars  and  fingers.  There  are  only  two 
fates  I  dread  —  deafness  and  writer's  cramp.  The  hand 
is  yet  steady  ;  let  the  ear  bear  the  blame  if  these  printed 
words  be  not  in  the  order  they  were  delivered  to  me  by 
Hunky  Magec,  true  camp-follower  of  fortune. 

Biography  shall  claim  you  but  an  instant  —  I  first 
knew  Hunky  when  he  was  head-waiter  at  Chubb's  little 
beefsteak  restaurant  and  cafe  on  Third  Avenue.  There 
was  only  one  waiter  besides. 

Then,  successively,  I  caromed  against  him  in  the  little 
streets  of  the  Big  City  after  his  trip  to  Alaska,  his  voyage 
as  cook  with  a  treasure-seeking  expedition  to  the  Carib 
bean,  and  his  failure  as  a  pearl-fisher  in  the  Arkansas 
River.  Between  these  dashes  into  the  land  of  adventure 
he  usually  came  back  to  Chubb's  for  a  while.  Chubb's 
was  a  port  for  him  when  gales  blew  too  high ;  but  when  you 

134 


He  Also  Serves  135 

dined  there  and  Hunky  went  for  your  steak  you  never 
knew  whether  lie  would  come  to  anchor  in  the  kicchen  or 
in  the  Malayan  Archipelago.  You  wouldn't  care  for  his 
description  —  he  was  soft  of  voice  and  hard  of  face,  and 
rarely  had  to  use  more  than  one  eye  to  quell  any  ap 
proach  to  a  disturbance  among  Chubb's  customers. 

One  night  I  found  Hunky  standing  at  a  corner  of 
Twenty-third  Street  and  Third  Avenue  after  an  absence 
of  several  months.  In  ten  minutes  we  had  a  little  round 
table  between  us  in  a  quiet  corner,  and  my  ears  began  to 
get  busy.  I  leave  out  my  sly  ruses  and  feints  to  draw 
Hunky's  word-of-mouth  blows  —  it  all  came  to  something 
like  this : 

"Speaking  of  the  next  election,"  said  Ilunk}',  "did  you 
ever  know  much  about  Indians?  No?  I  don't  mean  the 
Cooper,  Beadle,  cigar-store,  or  Laughing  Water  kind  — 
I  mean  the  modern  Indian  —  the  kind  that  takes  Greek 
prizes  in  colleges  and  scalps  the  half-back  on  the  other 
side  in  football  games.  The  kind  that  eats  macaroons 
and  tea  in  the  afternoons  with  the  daughter  of  the  pro 
fessor  of  biology,  and  fills  up  on  grasshoppers  and  fried 
rattlesnake  whvn  they  get  back  to  the  ancestral  wickiup. 

"Well,  the}'  ain't  yo  bad.  I  like  'cm  better  than  most 
foreigners  that  have  come  over  in  the  last  few  hundred 
years.  One  thing  about  the  Indian  is  this :  when  he  mixes 
with  the  white  race  he  swaps  all  his  own  vices  for  them  of 
the  pale-faces  —  and  he  retains  all  his  own  virtues.  Well, 
his  virtues  are  enough  to  call  out  the  reserves  whenever 


136  Options 

he  lets  'em  loose.  But  the  imported  foreigners  adopt 
our  virtues  and  keep  their  own  vices  —  and  it's  going  to 
take  our  whole  standing  army  some  day  to  police  that 
gang. 

"But  let  me  tell  you  about  the  trip  I  took  to  Mexico 
with  High  Jack  Snakefeeder,  a  Cherokee  twice  removed, 
a  graduate  of  a  Pennsylvania  college  and  the  latest  thing 
in  pointed-toed,  rubber-heeled,  patent  kid  moccasins  and 
Madras  hunting-shirt  with  turned-back  cuffs.  He  was 
a  friend  of  mine.  I  met  him  in  Tahlequah  when  I  was  out 
there  during  the  land  boom,  and  we  got  thick.  He  had 
got  all  there  was  out  of  colleges  and  had  come  back  to 
lead  his  people  out  of  Egypt.  He  was  a  man  of  first- 
class  style  and  wrote  essays,  and  had  been  invited  to  visit 
rich  guys'  houses  in  Boston  and  such  places. 

"There  was  a  Cherokee  girl  in  Muscogee  that  High 
Jack  was  foolish  about.  He  took  me  to  see  her  a  few 
times.  Her  name  was  Florence  Blue  Feather  —  but  you 
want  to  clear  your  mind  of  all  ideas  of  squaws  with  nose 
rings  and  army  blankets.  This  young  lady  was  whiter 
than  you  are,  and  better  educated  than  I  ever  was.  You 
couldn't  have  told  her  from  any  of  the  girls  shopping  in 
the  swell  Third  Avenue  stores.  I  liked  her  so  well  that  I 
got  to  calling  on  her  now  and  then  when  High  Jack  wasn't 
along,  which  is  the  way  of  friends  in  such  matters.  She 
was  educated  at  the  Muscogee  College,  and  was  making  a 
specialty  of  —  let's  see  —  eth  —  yes,  ethnology.  That's 
the  art  that  goes  b?  ck  and  traces  the  descent  of  different 
races  of  people,  leading  up  from  jelly-fish  through  mon- 


lie  Also  Serves  137 

keys  and  to  the  O'Briens.  High  Jack  had  took  up  that 
line  too,  and  had  read  papers  about  it  before  all  kinds  of 
riotous  assemblies  —  Chautauquas  and  Choctaws  and 
chowder-parties,  and  such.  Having  a  mutual  taste  for 
musty  information  like  that  was  what  made  'em  like  each 
other,  I  suppose.  But  I  don't  know !  What  they  call 
congeniality  of  tastes  ain't  always  it.  Now,  when  Miss 
Blue  Feather  and  me  was  talking  together,  I  listened  to 
her  affidavits  about  the  first  families  of  the  Land  of  Nod 
being  cousins  german  (well,  if  the  Germans  don't  nod, 
•who  does?)  to  the  mound-builders  of  Ohio  with  incompre 
hension  and  respect.  And  when  I'd  tell  her  about  the 
Bowery  and  Coney  Island,  and  sing  her  a  few  songs  that 
I'd  heard  the  Jamaica  niggers  sing  at  their  church  lawn- 
parties,  she  didn't  look  much  less  interested  than  she  did 
when  High  Jack  would  tell  her  that  he  had  a  pipe  that 
the  first  inhabitants  of  America  originally  arrived  here 
on  stilts  after  a  freshet  at  Tenafly,  New  Jersey. 

"But  I  was  going  to  tell  you  more  about  High  Jack. 

"About  six  months  ago  I  get  a  letter  from  him,  saying 
he'd  been  commissioned  by  the  Minority  Report  Bureau 
of  Ethnology  at  Washington  to  go  down  to  Mexico  and 
translate  some  excavations  or  dig  up  the  meaning  of  some 
shorthand  notes  on  some  ruins  —  or  something  of  that 
sort.  And  if  I'd  go  along  he  could  squeeze  the  price  into 
the  expense  account. 

"Well,  I'd  been  holding  a  napkin  over  my  arm  at 
Chubb's  about  long  enough  then,  so  I  wired  High  Jack 


138  Options 

'Yes';  and  he  sent  me  a  ticket,  and  I  met  him  in  Wash 
ington,  and  he  had  a  lot  of  news  to  tell  me.  First  of  all 
was  that  Florence  Blue  Feather  h:;d  suddenly  disap 
peared  from  her  home  and  environments. 

"'Hun  awayr1'  I  asked. 

"  'Vanished,'  says  High  Jack.  'Disappeared  like  your 
shadow  when  the  sun  goes  under  a  cloud.  She  was  seen 
on  the  street,  and  then  she  turned  a  corner  and  nobody 
ever  seen  her  afterward.  The  whole  community  turned 
out  to  look  for  her,  but  we  never  found  a  clew.' 

"'That's  bad— that's  bad,'  says  I.  'She  was  a 
mighty  nice  girl,  and  as  smart  as  you  find  'cm.' 

"High  Jack  seemed  to  take  it  hard.  I  guess  he  must 
have  esteemed  Miss  Blue  Feather  quite  highly.  I  could 
see  that  he'd  referred  the  matter  to  the  whiskey-jug. 
That  was  his  weak  point  —  and  many  another  man's. 
I've  noticed  that  when  a  man  loses  a  girl  he  generally 
takes  to  drink  either  just  before  or  just  after  it  happens. 

"From  Washington  wo  railroaded  it  to  New  Orleans, 
and  there  took  a  tramp  steamer  bound  for  Bdize.  And 
a  gale  pounded  us  all  down  the  Caribbean,  and  nearly 
wrecked  us  on  the  Yucatan  coast  opposite  a  little  tov.Ti 
without  a  harbor  called  Boca  de  Coaco}rula.  Suppose 
the  ship  had  run  against  that  name  in  the  dark  ! 

'''Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cyclone  in  the 
bay,'  says  High  Jack  Snakefecdcr.  So  we  get  the  cap 
tain  to  send  us  a.shore  in  a  dory  when  the  squall  seemed  to 
cease  from  squalling. 

'"We  will  find  ruins  here  or  make  'cm,'  says  High. 


He  Also  Serves  139 

*The  Government  doesn't  care  which  we  do.  An  appro 
priation  is  an  appropriation.' 

"Boca  do  C'o.icoyula  was  a  dead  town.  Them  biblical 
towns  we  read  about  —  Tired  and  Siphon  —  after  they 
was  destroyed,  they  must  have  looked  like  Forty-second 
Street  and  Broadway  compared  to  this  Boca  place.  It 
still  claimed  1300  inhabitants  as  estimated  and  engraved 
on  the  stone  courthouse  by  the  census-taker  in  1597. 
The  citizens  were  a  mixture  of  Indians  and  other  Indians ; 
but  some  of  'em  was  light-colored,  which  I  was  surprised 
to  sec.  The  town  was  huddled  up  on  the  shore,  with 
woods  so  thu-k  around  it  that  a  subpoena-server  couldn't 
have  reached  a  monkey  ten  yards  away  with  the  papers. 
We  wondered  what  kept  it  from  being  annexed  to 
Kansas ;  but  we  soon  found  out  that  it  was  ?,I;xjor  Bing. 

"Major  Bing  was  the  ointment  around  the  fly.  He 
had  the  cochineal,  sarsaparilla,  logwood,  annatto  hemp, 
and  all  other  dye-woods  and  pure  food  adulteration  con 
cessions  cornered.  He  had  five  sixths  of  the  Boca  de 
Thingama- jiggers  working  for  him  on  shares.  It  was  a 
beautiful  graft.  We  used  to  brag  about  Morgan  and 
E.  H.  and  others  of  our  wisest  when  I  was  in  the  prov 
inces —  but  now  no  more.  That  peninsula  has  got  our 
little  country  turned  into  a  submarine  without  even  the 
observation  tower  showing. 

"Major  Bing's  idea  was  this :  He  had  the  population 
go  forth  into  the  forest  and  gather  these  products. 
When  they  brought  'em  in  he  gave  'em  one  fifth  for  their 


140  Options 

trouble.  Sometimes  they'd  strike  and  demand  a  sixth. 
The  Major  always  gave  in  to  'em. 

"The  Major  had  a  bungalow  so  close  on  the  sea  that 
the  nine-inch  tide  seeped  through  the  cracks  in  the  kitchen 
floor.  Me  and  him  and  High  Jack  Snakefeeder  sat  on 
the  porch  and  drank  rum  from  noon  till  midnight.  He 
said  he  had  piled  up  $300,000  in  New  Orleans  banks,  and 
High  and  me  could  stay  with  him  forever  if  we  would. 
But  High  Jack  happened  to  think  of  the  United  States, 
and  began  -to  talk  ethnology. 

"'Ruins!'  says  Major  Bing.  'The  woods  are  full  of 
'em.  I  don't  know  how  far  they  date  back,  but  they  was 
here  before  I  came.' 

"High  Jack  asks  what  form  of  worship  the  citizens  of 
that  locality  are  addicted  to. 

"'Why,'  says  the  Major,  rubbing  his  nose,  'I  can't 
hardly  say.  I  imagine  it's  infidel  or  Aztec  or  Noncon 
formist  or  something  like  that.  There's  a  church  here  — 
a  Methodist  or  some  other  kind  —  with  a  parson  named 
Skidder.  He  claims  to  have  converted  the  people  to 
Christianity.  He  and  me  don't  assimilate  except  on 
state  occasions.  I  imagine  they  worship  some  kind  of 
gods  or  idols  yet.  But  Skidder  says  he  has  'em  in  the 
fold.' 

"A  few  days  later  High  Jack  and  me,  prowling  around, 
strikes  a  plain  path  into  the  forest,  and  follows  it  a  good 
four  miles.  Then  a  branch  turns  to  the  left.  We  go  a 
mile,  maybe,  down  that,  and  run  up  against  the  finest 
ruin  you  ever  saw  —  solid  stone  with  trees  and  vines  and 


He  Also  Serves  141 

underbrush  all  growing  up  against  it  and  in  it  and 
through  it.  All  over  it  was  chiselled  carvings  of  funny 
beasts  and  people  that  would  have  been  arrested  if  they'd 
ever  come  out  in  vaudeville  that  way.  We  approached 
it  from  the  rear. 

"High  Jack  had  been  drinking  too  much  rum  ever  since 
we  landed  in  Boca.  You  know  how  an  Indian  is  —  the 
palefaces  fixed  his  clock  when  they  introduced  him  to 
firewater.  He'd  brought  a  quart  along  with  him. 

"'Hunky,'  says  he,  'we'll  explore  the  ancient  temple. 
It  may  be  that  the  storm  that  landed  us  here  was  pro 
pitious.  The  Minority  Report  Bureau  of  Ethnology,' 
says  he,  'may  yet  profit  by  the  vagaries  of  wind  and  tide.* 

"We  went  in  the  rear  door  of  the  bum  edifice.  We 
struck  a  kind  of  alcove  without  bath.  There  was  a  gran 
ite  davenport,  and  a  stone  wash-stand  without  any  soap 
jr  exit  for  the  water,  and  some  hardwood  pegs  drove  into 
holes  in  the  wall,  and  that  was  all.  To  go  out  of  that 
furnished  apartment  into  a  Harlem  hall  bedroom  would 
make  you  feel  like  getting  back  home  from  an  amateur 
violoncello  solo  at  an  East  Side  Settlement  house. 

"While  High  was  examining  some  hieroglyphics  on  the 
wall  that  the  stone-masons  must  have  made  when  their 
tools  slipped,  I  stepped  into  the  front  room.  That  was 
at  least  thirty  by  fifty  feet,  stone  floor,  six  little  windows 
like  square  port-holes  that  didn't  let  much  light  in. 

"I  looked  back  over  my  shoulder,  and  sees  High  Jack's 
face  three  feet  away. 

"'High,'  says  I,  'of  all  the ' 


142  Options 

"And  then  I  noticed  he  looked  funny,  and  I  turned 
around. 

"He'd  taken  off  his  clothes  to  the  waist,  and  he  didn't 
seem  to  hear  inc.  I  touched  him,  and  came  near  beating 
it.  High  Jack  had  turned  to  stone.  I  had  been  drink 
ing  some  rum  mj^self. 

"  'Ossified  !'  I  says  to  him,  loudly.  'I  knew  what  would 
happen  if  you  kept  it  up.' 

"And  then  High  Jack  comes  in  from  the  alcove  when  he 
hears  me  conversing  with  nobody,  and  we  have  a  look  at 
Mr.  Snakefeeder  No.  2.  It's  a  stone  idol,  or  god,  or  re 
vised  statute  or  something,  and  it  looks  as  much  like  High 
Jack  as  one  green  pea  looks  like  itself.  It's  got  exactly 
his  face  and  size  and  color,  but  it's  steadier  on  its  pins. 
It  stands  on  a  kind  of  rostrum  or  pedestal,  and  you  can 
sec  it's  been  there  ten  million  years. 

"  'He's  a  cousin  of  mine,'  sings  High,  and  then  he 
turns  solemn. 

"  'Hunky,'  he  says,  putting  one  hand  on  my  shoulder 
and  one  on  the  statue's,  'I'm  in  the  holy  temple  of  my 
ancestors.' 

"'Well,  if  looks  goes  for  anything,'  sa}'s  I,  'you've 
struck  a  twin.  Stand  side  by  side  with  buddy,  and  let's 
see  if  there's  any  difference.' 

"There  wasn't.  You  know  an  Indian  can  keep  his  face 
as  still  as  an  iron  dog's  when  he  wants  to,  so  when  High 
Jack  froze  his  features  you  couldn't  have  told  him  from 
the  other  one. 

"  'There's  some  letters,'  says  I,  'on  his  nob's  pedestal, 


lie  Also  Serves  143 

but  I  can't  make  'cm  out.  The  alphabet  of  this  country 
seems  to  be  composed  of  sometimes  a,  c,  i,  o,  and  «,  gen 
erally,  z'v  /'.¥,  and  t's.' 

"High  Jack's  ethnology  gets  the  upper  hand  of  his 
rum  for  a  minute,  and  he  investigates  the  inscription. 

"'llunky,'  says  he,  'this  is  a  statue  of  Tlotopaxl,  one 
of  the  most  powerful  gods  of  the  ancient  Aztecs/ 

"  'Glad  to  know  him,'  says  I,  'but  in  hiv  present  con 
dition  he  reminds  me  of  the  joke  Shakes}',  are  got  off  on 
Julius  Cajsar.  We  might  say  about  yo  ir  friend: 

"'Imperious  What's  his-name,  dead  and  turned  to  stone- 
No  us>c  to  write  or  call  him  on  the   plume.' 

"'Hunky,'  says  High  Jack  Snake-feeder,  looking  at  me 
funny,  'do  you  believe  in  reincarnation?' 

"  'It  sounds  to  me,'  says  I»  'like  either  a  clean-up  of  the 
slaughter-houses  or  a  new  kind  of  Boston  pink.  I  don't 
know.' 

"  'I  believe,'  says  he,  *that  I  am  the  reincarnation  of 
Tlotopaxl.  My  researches  have  convinced  me  that  the 
Chevokces,  of  all  the  North  American  tribes,  can  boast  of 
the  straightest  descent  from  the  proud  Aztec  race. 
That,'  says  he,  'was  a  favorite  theory  of  mine  and  Flor 
ence  Blue  Feather's.  And  she  —  what  if  she " 

"High  Jack  grabs  my  arm  and  walls  his  eyes  at  me. 
Just  then  he  looked  more  like  his  eminent  co-Indian  mur 
derer,  Crazy  Horse. 

"'Well,'  says  I,  'what  if  she,  what  if  she,  what  if  she? 
You're  drunk,'  says  I.  'Impersonating  idols  and  believ- 


144  Options 

ing  in  —  what  was  it  ?  —  recarnalization  ?  Let's  have  a 
drink,'  says  I.  'It's  as  spooky  here  as  a  Brooklyn  arti 
ficial-limb  factory  at  midnight  with  the  gas  turned  down.' 

"Just  then  I  heard  somebody  coming,  and  I  dragged 
High  Jack  into  the  bedless  bedchamber.  There  was 
peepholes  bored  through  the  wall,  so  we  could  sec  the 
whole  front  part  of  the  temple.  Major  Bing  told  me 
afterward  that  the  ancient  priests  in  charge  used  to  rub 
ber  through  them  at  the  congregation. 

"In  a  few  minutes  an  old  Indian  woman  came  in  with  a 
big  oval  earthen  dish  full  of  grub.  She  set  it  on  a  square 
block  of  stone  in  front  of  the  graven  image,  and  laid 
down  and  walloped  her  face  on  the  floor  a  few  times,  am£ 
then  took  a  walk  for  herself. 

"High  Jack  and  me  was  hungry,  so  we  came  out  and 
looked  it  over.  There  was  goat  steaks  and  fried  rice- 
cakes,  and  plantains  and  cassava,  and  broiled  land-crabs 
and  mangoes  —  nothing  like  what  you  get  at  Chubb's. 

"We  ate  hearty  —  and  had  another  round  of  rum. 

"  'It  must  be  old  Tecumseh's  —  or  whatever  you  call 
him  —  birthday,'  says  I.  'Or  do  they  feed  him  every 
day?  I  thought  gods  only  drank  vanilla  on  Mount 
Catawarnpus.' 

"Then  some  more  native  parties  in  short  kimonos  that 
showed  their  aboriginees  puncture  the  near-horizon,  and 
me  and  High  had  to  skip  back  into  Father  Axletree's 
private  boudoir.  They  came  by  ones,  twos,  and  threes, 
and  left  all  sorts  of  offerings  —  there  was  enough  grub  for 
Bingham's  nine  gods  of  war,  with  plenty  left  over  for  the 


He  Also  Serves  145 

Peace  Conference  at  The  Hague.  They  brought  jars  of 
honey,  aud  bunches  of  bananas,  and  bottles  of  wine,  and 
stacks  of  tortillas,  and  beautiful  shawls  worth  one  hun 
dred  dollars  apiece  that  the  Indian  women  weave  of  a  kind 
of  vegetable  fibre  like  silk.  All  of  'em  got  down  and  wrig 
gled  on  the  floor  in  front  of  that  hard-finish  god,  and 
then  sneaked  off  through  the  woods  again. 

"'I  wonder  who  gets  this  rake-off?'  remarks  High 
Jack. 

"  'Oh,'  says  I,  'there's  priests  or  deputy  idols  or  a  com 
mittee  of  disarrangements  somewhere  in  the  woods  on  the 
job.  Wherever  you  find  a  god  you'll  find  somebody  wait 
ing  to  take  charge  of  the  burnt  offerings.' 

"And  then  we  took  another  swig  of  rum  and  walked  out 
to  the  parlor  front  door  to  cool  off,  for  it  was  as  hot  in 
side  as  a  summer  camp  on  the  Palisades. 

"And  while  we  stood  there  in  the  breeze  we  looks  down 
the  path  and  sees  a  young  lady  approaching  the  blasted 
ruin.  She  was  barefooted  and  had  on  a  white  robe,  and 
carried  a  wreath  of  white  flowers  in  her  hand.  When  she 
got  nearer  we  saw  she  had  a  long  blue  feather  stuck 
through  her  black  hair.  And  when  she  got  nearer  still 
me  and  High  Jack  Snakefeeder  grabbed  each  other  t% 
keep  from  tumbling  down  on  the  floor ;  for  the  girl's  face 
was  as  much  like  Florence  Blue  Feather's  as  his  was  like 
old  King  Toxicology's. 

"And  then  was  when  High  Jack's  booze  drowned  his 
system  of  ethnology.  He  dragged  me  inside  back  of  the 
statue,  and  says : 


146  Options 

"  'Lay  hold  of  it,  Hunky.  We'll  pack  it  into  the  other 
room.  I  felt  it  all  the  time,'  says  he.  'I'm  the  recon 
sideration  of  the  god  Locomotor-ataxia,  and  Florence 
Blue  Feather  was  my  bride  a  thousand  years  ago.  She 
has  come  to  seek  me  in  the  temple  where  I  used  to 
reign.' 

"  'All  right,'  says  I.  There's  no  use  arguing  against 
the  rum  question.  You  take  his  feet.' 

"We  lifted  the  thrce-hundred-pound  stone  god,  and 
carried  him  into  the  back  room  of  the  cafe —  the  temple, 
I  mean  —  and  leaned  him  against  the  wall.  It  was 
more  work  than  bouncing  three  live  ones  from  an  all- 
night  Broadway  joint  on  New-Year's  Eve. 

"Then  High  Jack  ran  out  and  brought  in  a  couple 
of  them  Indian  silk  shawls  and  began  to  undress  him 
self. 

"  'Oh,  figs  !'  says  I.  'Is  it  thus  ?  Strong  drink  is  an 
adder  and  subtracter,  too.  Is  it  the  heat  or  the  call  of 
the  wild  that's  got  you?' 

"But  High  Jack  is  too  full  of  exaltation  and  cane- juice 
to  reply.  He  stops  the  disrobing  business  just  short  of 
the  Manhattan  Beach  rules,  and  then  winds  them  red- 
and-whitc  shawls  around  him,  and  goes  out  and  stands  on 
the  pedestal  as  steady  as  any  platinum  deity  you  ever  saw. 
And  I  looks  through  a  peek-hole  to  see  what  he  is  up  to, 

"In  a  few  minutes  in  comes  the  girl  with  the  flower 
wreath.  Danged  if  I  wasn't  knocked  a  little  silly  when 
she  got  close,  she  looked  so  exactly  much  like 'Florence 
Blu*  Feather.  'I  wonder,'  says  I  to  myself,  'if  she  has 


He  Also  Serves  147 

been  reincarccratcd,  too?  If  I  could  sec,'  says  I  to  my 
self,  'whether  she  has  a  mole  on  her  left — '  But  the 
next  minute  I  thought  she  looked  one  eighth  of  a 
shade  darker  than  ilorcncc;  but  she  looked  good  at 
that.  And  High  Jaek  hadn't  drunk  all  the  rum  that  had 
been  drank. 

"The  girl  went  up  within  ten  feet  of  the  bum  idol,  and 
got  down  and  massaged  her  nose  witli  the  floor,  like  the 
rest  did.  Then  she  went  nearer  and  laid  the  Mower  wreath 
on  the  block  of  stone  at  High  Jack's  feet.  Rummy  as  I 
was,  I  thought  it  was  kind  of  nice  of  her  to  think  of 
offering  flower.s  instead  of  household  and  kitchen  provi 
sions.  Even  a  stone  god  ought  to  appreciate  a  little 
sentiment  like  that  on  top  of  the  fancy  groceries  they 
had  piled  up  in  front  of  him. 

"And  then  High  Jack  steps  down  from  his  pedestal, 
quiet,  and  mentions  a  few  words  that  sounded  just  like 
the  hieroglyphics  carved  on  the  walls  of  the  ruin.  The 
girl  gives  a  little  jump  backward,  and  her  ej-cs  fly  open 
as  big  as  doughnuts ;  but  she  don't  beat  it. 

"Why  didn't  she?  I'll  tell  you  why  I  think  why.  It 
don't  seem  to  a  girl  so  supernatural,  unlikely,  strange, 
and  startling  that  a  stone  god  should  come  to  life  for  her. 
If  he  was  to  do  it  for  one  of  them  snub-nosed  brown  girls 
on  the  other  side  of  the  woods,  now,  it  would  be  different 
—  but  her!  I'll  bet  she  said  to  herself :  'Well,  goodness 
me!  you've  been  a  long  time  getting  on  your  job.  Pve 
half  a  mind  not  to  speak  to  you.* 

"But  she  and  High  Jack  holds  hands  and  walks  away 


148  Options 

out  of  the  temple  together.  By  the  time  I'd  had  time  to 
take  another  drink  and  enter  upon  the  scene  they  was 
twenty  yards  away,  going  up  the  path  in  the  woods  that 
the  girl  had  come  down.  With  the  natural  scenery  al 
ready  in  place,  it  was  just  like  a  play  to  watch  'em  —  she 
looking  up  at  him,  and  him  giving  her  back  the  best  that 
an  Indian  can  hand  out  in  the  way  of  a  goo-goo  eye. 
But  there  wasn't  anything  in  that  rccarnification  and 
revulsion  to  tintype  for  me. 

"  'Hey  !  In j  un  !'  I  yells  out  to  High  Jack.  'We've  got 
a  board-bill  due  in  town,  and  you're  leaving  me  without  a 
cent.  Brace  up  and  cut  out  the  Neapolitan  fisher- 
maiden,  and  let's  go  back  home.' 

"But  on  the  two  goes  without  looking  once  back  until, 
as  you  might  say,  the  forest  swallowed  'em  up.  And  I 
never  saw  or  heard  of  High  Jack  Snakefeeder  from  that 
day  to  this.  I  don't  know  if  the  Cherokees  came  from 
the  Aspics ;  but  if  they  did,  one  of  'em  went  back. 

"All  I  could  do  was  to  hustle  back  to  that  Boca  place 
and  panhandle  Major  Bing.  He  detached  himself  from 
enough  of  his  winnings  to  buy  me  a  ticket  home.  And 
I'm  back  again  on  the  job  at  Chubb's,  sir,  and  I'm  going 
to  hold  it  steady.  Come  round,  and  you'll  find  the  steaks 
as  good  as  ever." 

I  wondered  what  Hunky  Magee  thought  about  his  own 
story ;  so  I  asked  him  if  he  had  any  theories  about  rein 
carnation  and  transmogrification  and  such  mysteries  as 
he  had  touched  upon. 

"Nothing  like  that,"  said  Hunky,  positively.     "What 


He  Also  Serves  149 

ailed  High  Jack  was  too  much  booze  and  education. 
They'll  do  an  Indian  up  every  time." 

"But  what  about  Miss  Blue  Feather?"  I  persisted. 

"Say,"  said  Hunky,  with  a  grin,  "that  little  lady  that 
stole  High  Jack  certainly  did  give  me  a  jar  when  I  first 
took  a  look  at  her,  but  it  was  only  for  a  minute.  You 
remember  I  told  you  High  Jack  said  that  Miss  Florence 
Blue  Feather  disappeared  from  home  about  a  year  ago? 
Well,  where  she  landed  four  days  later  was  in  as  neat  a 
five-room  flat  on  East  Twenty-third  Street  as  you  ever 
walked  sideways  through  —  and  she's  been  Mrs.  Magee 
ever  since." 


THE  MOMENT  OF  VICTORY 

BEN  GRANGER  is  a  war  veteran  aged  twenty-nine  — 
which  should  enable  you  to  guess  the  war.  lie  is  also 
principal  merchant  and  postmaster  of  Cadiz,  a  little  town 
over  which  the  breezes  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  perpet 
ually  blow. 

Ben  helped  to  hurl  the  Don  from  his  stronghold  in  the 
Greater  Antilles  ;  and  then,  hiking  across  half  the  world, 
he  marched  as  a  corporal-usher  up  and  down  the  blazing 
tropic  aisles  of  the  open-air  college  in  which  the  Filipino 
was  schooled.  Now,  with  his  bayonet  beaten  into  «.  cheese 
slicer,  he  rallies  his  corporal's  guard  of  cronies  in  the 
shade  of  his  well-whittled  porch,  instead  of  in  the  matted 
jungles  of  Mindanao.  Always  have  hia  interest  and 
choice  been  for  deeds  rather  than  for  words;  but  the 
consideration  and  digestion  of  motives  is  not  beyond  him, 
as  this  story,  which  is  his,  will  attest. 

"What  is  it,"  he  asked  me  one  moonlit  eve,  as  we  sat 
among  his  boxes  and  barrels,  "that  generally  makes  men 
go  through  dangers,  and  fire,  and  trouble,  and  starvation, 
and  battle,  and  such  recourses?  What  docs  a  mnn  do  it 
for?  Why  does  he  try  to  outdo  his  fellow-hnmans,  and 
be  braver  and  stronger  and  more  daring  am!  showy  than 
even  his  best  friends  are?  What's  his  game ?  What  does 

he  expect  to  get  out  of  it?    Tie  don't  do  it  jttst  for  the 

150 


The  Moment  of  Victory  151 

fresh  air  and  exercise.  What  would  you  say,  now,  Bill, 
that  an  ordinary  man  expects,  generally  speaking,  for 
his  efforts  along  the  line  of  ambition  and  extraordinary 
hustling  in  the  market-places,  forums,  shooting-galleries, 
lyceurns,  battlefields,  links,  cinder-paths,  and  arenas  of 
the  civilized  and  rice  versa  places  of  the  world?" 

"Well,  Ben,"  said  I,  with  judicial  seriousness,  "I  think 
we  might  safely  limit  the  number  of  motives  of  a  man  who 
seeks  fame  to  three  —  to  ambition,  which  is  a  desire  for 
popular  applause ;  to  avarice,  which  looks  to  the  material 
side  of  success ;  and  to  love  of  some  woman  whom  he 
either  possesses  or  desires  to  possess." 

Ben  pondered  over  my  words  while  a  mocking-bird  on 
the  top  of  a  mesquite  by  the  porch  trilled  a  dozen  bars. 

"I  reckon,"  said  he,  "that  your  diagnosis  about  cov 
ers  the  case  according  to  the  rules  laid  down  in  the  copy 
books  and  historical  readers.  But  what  I  had  in  my 
mind  was  the  case  of  Willie  Robbins,  a  person  I  used  to 
know.  I'll  tell  you  about  him  before  I  close  up  the  store, 
if  you  don't  mind  listening. 

"Willie  was  one  of  our  social  set  up  in  San  Augustine. 
I  was  clerking  there  then  for  Brady  &  Murchison,  whole 
sale  dry-goods  and  ranch  supplies.  Willie  and  I  be 
longed  to  the  same  german  club  and  athletic  association 
and  military  company.  He  played  the  triangle  in  our 
serenading  and  quartet  crowd  that  used  to  ring  the  wel 
kin  three  nights  a  week  somewhere  in  town. 

"Willie  jibed  with  his  name  considerable.  He  weighed 
about  aa  much  as  a  hundred  pounds  of  veal  in  his  summer 


152  Options 

suitings,  and  he  had  a  Where-is-Mary  ?  expression  on 
his  features  so  plain  that  you  could  almost  see  the  wool 
growing  on  him. 

"And  yet  you  couldn't  fence  him  away  from  the  girls 
with  barbed  wire.  You  know  that  kind  of  young  fellows 
—  a  kind  of  a  mixture  of  fools  and  angels  —  they  rush  in 
and  fear  to  tread  at  the  same  time ;  but  they  never  fail  to 
tread  when  they  get  the  chance.  He  was  always  on  hand 
when  'a  joyful  occasion  was  had,'  as  the  morning  paper 
would  say,  looking  as  happy  as  a  king  full,  and  at  the 
same  time  as  uncomfortable  as  a  raw  oyster  served  with 
sweet  pickles.  Pie  danced  like  he  had  hind  hobbles  on ; 
and  he  had  a  vocabulary  of  about  three  hundred  and  fifty 
words  that  he  made  stretch  over  four  germans  a  week, 
and  plagiarized  from  to  get  him  through  two  ice-cream 
suppers  and  a  Sunday-night  call.  He  seemed  to  me  to 
be  a  sort  of  a  mixture  of  Maltese  kitten,  sensitive  plant, 
and  a  member  of  a  stranded  Two  Orphans'  company. 

"I'll  give  you  an  estimate  of  his  physiological  and  pic 
torial  make-up  and  then  I'll  stick  spurs  into  tlie  ;  ;Jes  of 
my  narrative. 

"Willie  inclined  to  the  Caucasian  in  his  coloring  and 
manner  of  style.  His  hair  was  opalescent  and  his  con 
versation  fragmentary.  His  eyes  were  the  same  blue 
shade  as  the  china  dog's  in  the  right-hand  corner  of  your 
Aunt  Ellen's  mantelpiece.  He  took  things  as  they  came, 
and  I  never  felt  any  hostility  against  him.  I  let  him  live, 
and  so  did  others. 

"  But  what  does  this  Willie  do  but  coax  his  heart  out 


The  Moment  of  Victory  153 

of  his  boots  and  lose  it  to  Myra  Allison,  the  liveliest, 
brightest,  keenest,  smartest,  and  prettiest  girl  in  San 
Augustine.  I  tell  you,  she  had  the  blackest  eyes,  the 
shiniest  curls,  and  the  most  tantalizing  —  Oh,  no  you're 
off  —  I  wasn't  a  victim.  I  might  have  been,  but  I  knew 
better.  I  kept  out.  Joe  Granberry  was  It  from  the 
start.  He  had  everybody  else  beat  a  couple  of  leagues 
and  thence  east  to  a  stake  and  mound.  But,  anyhow, 
Myra  was  a  nine-pound,  full-merino,  fall-clip  fleece, 
sacked  and  loaded  on  a  four-horse  team  for  San  Antone. 

"One  night  there  was  an  ice-cream  sociable  at  Mrs. 
Colonel  Spraggins',  in  San  Augustine.  We  fellows  had  a 
big  room  upstairs  opened  up  for  us  to  put  our  hats  and 
things  in,  and  to  comb  our  hair  and  put  on  the  clean  col 
lars  we  brought  along  inside  the  sweat-bands  of  our  hats 
—  in  short,  a  room  to  fix  up  in  just  like  they  have  every 
where  at  high-toned  doings.  A  little  farther  down  the 
hall  was  the  girls'  room,  which  they  used  to  powder  up  in, 
and  so  forth.  Downstairs  we  —  that  is,  the  San  Augus 
tine  Social  Cotillion  and  Merrymakers'  Club  —  had  a 
stretcher  put  down  in  the  parlor  where  our  dance  was  go 
ing  on. 

"Willie  Robbins  and  me  happened  to  be  up  in  our  — 
cloak-room,  I  believe  we  called  it  —  when  Myra  Allison 
skipped  through  the  hall  on  her  way  downstairs  from  the 
girls'  room.  Willie  was  standing  before  the  mirror, 
deeply  interested  in  smoothing  down  the  blond  grass-plot 
on  his  head,  which  seemed  to  give  him  lots  of  trouble. 
Myra  was  always  full  of  life  and  devilment.  She  stopped 


154  Options 

and  stuck  her  head  in  our  door.  She  certainly  was  good- 
looking.  But  I  knew  how  Joe  Granbei  ry  stood  with  her. 
So  did  Willie;  but  he  kept  on  ba-a-a-ing  after  her  and 
following  her  around.  He  had  a  syster.i  of  persistence 
that  didn't  coincide  with  pale  hair  and  lirht  eyes. 

"'Hello,  Willie!'  says  Myra.  'What  arc  you  doing 
to  yourself  in  the  glass?* 

"  'I'm  trying  to  look  fly,'  says  Willie. 

"  'Well,  you  never  could  be  fly,'  says  Myra  trlth  her 
special  laugh,  v.hich  was  the  provokingest  sound  I  ever 
heard  except  the  rattle  of  an  empty  canteen  against  my 
saddle-horn. 

"I  looked  around  at  Willie  after  Myra  had  gone.  He 
had  a  kind  of  a  lily-white  look  on  him  v/hicli  seemed  to 
show  that  her  remark  had,  as  you  might  say,  disrupted 
his  soul.  I  never  noticed  anything  in  v/luit  5;he  said  that 
sounded  particularly  destructive  to  a  man's  ideas  of  self- 
consciousness  ;  but  he  was  set  back  to  an  extent  you  could 
scarcely  imagine. 

"After  we  went  downstairs  with  our  clean  collars  on, 
Willie  never  went  near  My ra  again  that  night.  After  all, 
he  seemed  to  be  a  diluted  kind  of  a  skim-milk  sort  of  a 
chap,  and  I  never  wondered  that  Joe  Cranberry  beat 
him  out. 

"The  next  clay  the  battleship  Maine  was  blown  up, 
and  then  pretty  soon  somebody  —  I  reckon  it  was  Joe 
Bailey,  or  Ben  Tillman,  or  maybe  the  Government  — 
declared  war  against  Spain. 

"Well,  everybody  south  of  Mason  &  Hamlin's  line 
knew  that  the  North  by  itself  couldn't  whip  *  whole 


The  Moment  of  Victory  155 

country  the  size  of  Spain.  So  the  Yankees  commenced 
to  holier  for  help,  and  the  Johnny  Rcbs  answered  the 
call.  'We're  coming,  Father  William,  a  hundred  thou 
sand  strong  —  and  then  some,'  was  the  way  they  sang  it. 
And  the  old  party  lines  drawn  by  Sherman's  march  and 
the  Kuklux  and  nine-cent  cotton  and  the  Jim  Crow  street 
car  ordinances  faded  away.  We  became  one  undivided 
country,  with  no  North,  very  little  East,  a  good-sized 
chunk  of  West,  and  a  South  that  loomed  up  as  big  as  the 
first  foreign  label  in  a  new  eight-dollar  suitcase. 

"Of  course  the  dogs  of  war  weren't  a  complete  pack 
without  a  yelp  from  the  San  Augustine  Rifles,  Company 
D,  of  the  Fourteenth  Texas  Regiment.  Our  company 
was  among  the  first  to  land  in  Cuba  and  strike  terror  into 
the  hearts  of  the  foe.  I'm  not  going  to  give  you  a  his 
tory  of  thi-  war;  I'm  just  dragging  it  in  to  fill  out  my 
story  about  Willie  Robbins,  just  as  the  Republican 
party  dragged  it  in  to  help  out  the  election  in  1898. 

"If  anybody  ever  had  hcroitis,  it  was  that.  Willie  Rob- 
bins.  From  the  minute  he  set  foot  on  the  soil  of  the 
tyrants  of  Castile  he  seemed  to  engulf  danger  as  a  cat 
laps  up  cream.  He  certainly  astonished  every  man  in 
our  company,  from  the  captain  up.  You'd  have  expected 
him  to  gravitate  naturally  to  the  job  of  an  orderly  to  the 
colonel,  or  typewriter  in  the  commissary  —  but  not  any. 
He  created  the  part  of  the  flaxen-haired  boy  hero  vrho 
lives  and  gets  back  home  with  the  goods,  instead  of  dying 
with  an  important  despatch  in  his  hands  at  his  colonel's 
feet. 


156  Options 

"Our  company  got  into  a  section  of  Cuban  scenery 
where  one  of  the  messiest  and  most  unsung  portions  of 
the  campaign  occurred.  We  were  out  every  day  capering 
around  in  the  bushes,  and  having  little  skirmishes  with 
the  Spanish  troops  that  looked  more  like  kind  of  tired- 
out  feuds  than  anything  else.  The  war  was  a  joke  to  us, 
and  of  no  interest  to  them.  We  never  could  see  it  any 
other  way  than  as  a  howling  farce-comedy  that  the  San 
Augustine  Rifles  were  actually  fighting  to  uphold  the 
Stars  and  Stripes.  And  the  blamed  little  senors  didn't 
get  enough  pay  to  make  them  care  whether  they  were 
patriots  or  traitors.  Now  and  then  somebody  would  get 
killed.  It  seemed  like  a  waste  of  life  to  me.  I  was  at 
Coney  Island  when  I  went  to  New  York  once,  and  one  of 
them  down-hill  skidding  apparatuses  they  call  'roller- 
coasters'  flew  the  track  and  killed  a  man  in  a  brown  sack- 
suit.  Whenever  the  Spaniards  shot  one  of  our  men,  it 
struck  me  a»  just  about  as  unnecessary  and  regrettable 
as  that  was. 

"But  I'm  dropping  Willie  Robbins  out  of  the  con 
versation. 

"He  was  out  for  bloodshed,  laurels,  ambitions,  medals, 
recommendations,  and  all  other  forms  of  military  glory. 
And  he  didn't  seem  to  be  afraid  of  any  of  the  recognized 
forms  of  military  danger,  such  as  Spaniards,  cannon- 
balls,  canned  beef,  gunpowder,  or  nepotism.  He  went 
forth  with  his  pallid  hair  and  china-blue  eyes  and  ate  up 
Spaniards  like  you  would  sardines  a  la  canopy.  Wars 
and  rumbles  of  wars  never  flustered  him.  He  would  stand 


The  Moment  of  Victory  157 

guard-duty,  mosquitoes,  hardtack,  treat,  and  fire  with 
equally  perfect  unanimity.  No  blondes  in  history  ever 
come  in  comparison  distance  of  him  except  the  Jack  of 
Diamonds  and  Queen  Catherine  of  Russia. 

"I  remember,  one  time,  a  little  caballard  of  Spanish  men 
sauntered  out  from  behind  a  patch  of  sugar-cane  and  shot 
Bob  Turner,  the  first  sergeant  of  our  company,  while  we 
were  eating  dinner.  As  required  by  the  army  regulations, 
we  fellows  went  through  the  usual  tactics  of  falling  into 
line,  saluting  the  enemy,  and  loading  and  firing,  kneeling. 

"That  wasn't  the  Texas  way  of  scrapping ;  but,  being 
a  very  important  addendum  and  annex  to  the  regular 
army,  the  San  Augustine  Rifles  had  to  conform  to  the 
red-tape  system  of  getting  even. 

"By  the  time  we  had  got  out  our  'Upton's  Tactics,' 
turned  to  page  fifty-seven,  said  'one  —  two  —  three  — 
one  —  two  —  three'  a  couple  of  times,  and  got  blank  car 
tridges  into  our  Springfields,  the  Spanish  outfit  had 
smiled  repeatedly,  rolled  and  lit  cigarettes  by  squads, 
and  walked  away  contemptuously. 

"I  went  straight  to  Captain  Floyd,  and  says  to  him: 
'Sam,  I  don't  think  this  war  is  a  straight  game.  You 
know  as  well  as  I  do  that  Bob  Turner  was  one  of  the  whit 
est  fellows  that  ever  threw  a  leg  over  a  saddle,  and  now 
these  wire-pullers  in  Washington  have  fixed  his  clock. 
He's  politically  and  ostensibly  dead.  It  ain't  fair.  Why 
should  they  keep  this  thing  up?  If  they  want  Spain 
licked,  why  don't  they  turn  the  San  Augustine  Rifles  and 
Joe  Seely's  ranger  company  and  a  carload  of  West  Texas 


158  Options 

deputy-sheriffs  on  to  these  Spaniards,  and  let  us  exoner 
ate  them  from  the  face  of  the  earth?  I  never  did,'  says  I, 
*care  much  about  fighting  by  the  Lord  Chesterfield  ring 
rules.  I'm  going  to  hand  in  my  resignation  and  go  home 
if  anybody  else  I  am  personally  acquainted  with  gets  hurt 
in  this  war.  If  you  can  get  somebody  in  my  place,  Sam,' 
says  I,  *I'll  quit  the  first  of  next  week.  I  don't  want  to 
work  in  an  army  that  don't  give  its  help  a  chance.  Never 
mind  my  wages,'  says  I ;  'let  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury  keep  'em.' 

"  'Well,  Ben,'  says  the  captain  to  me,  'your  allegations 
and  estimations  of  the  tactics  of  war,  government,  pa 
triotism,  guard-mounting,  and  democracy  are  all  right. 
But  I've  looked  into  the  system  of  international  arbitra 
tion  and  the  ethics  of  justifiable  slaughter  a  little  closer, 
maybe,  than  you  have.  Now,  you  can  hand  in  your 
resignation  the  first  of  next  week  if  you  are  so  minded. 
But  if  you  do,'  says  Sam,  'I'll  order  a  corporal's  guard  to 
take  you  over  by  that  limestone  bluff  on  the  creek  and 
shoot  enough  lead  into  you  to  ballast  a  submarine  air 
ship.  I'm  captain  of  this  company,  and  I've  swore  al 
legiance  to  the  Amalgamated  States  regardless  of  sec 
tional,  secessional,  and  Congressional  differences.  Have 
you  got  any  smoking-tobacco?'  winds  up  Sam.  'Mine 
got  wet  when  I  swum  the  creek  this  morning.' 

"The  reason  I  drag  all  this  non  ex  pvrte  evidence  in  is 
because  Willie  Bobbins  was  standing  therclistening  to  us. 
I  was  a  second  sergeant  and  he  was  a  private  then,  but 
among  us  Texans  and  Westerners  there  never  was  as 


The  Moment  of  Victory  159 

much  tactics  and  subordination  as  there  was  in  the  regu 
lar  army.  We  never  called  our  captain  anything  but 
'Sam'  except  when  there  was  a  lot  of  major-generals  and 
admirals  around,  so  as  to  preserve  the  discipline. 

"And  says  Willie  Robbins  to  me,  in  a  sharp  construc 
tion  of  voice  much  unbecoming  to  his  light  hair  and  pre 
vious  record: 

'"You  ought  to  be  shot,  Ben,  for  emitting  any  such 
sentiments.  A  man  that  won't  fight  for  his  country  is 
worse  than  a  horse-thief.  If  I  was  the  cap,  I'd  put  jo« 
in  the  guard-house  for  thirty  days  on  round  steak  and 
tamales.  War,'  says  Willie,  'is  great  and  glorious.  I 
didn't  know  you  were  a  coward.' 

"'I'm  not,'  says  I.  'If  I  was,  I'd  knock  some  of  the 
pallidness  off  your  marble  brow.  I'm  lenient  with  you,' 
I  says,  'just  as  I  am  with  the  Spaniards,  because  you  have 
always  reminded  me  of  something  with  mushrooms  on  the 
gide.  Why,  you  little  Lady  of  Shalott,'  says  I,  'you  under 
done  leader  of  cotillions,  you  glassy  fashion  and  moulded 
form,  you  white-pine  soldier  made  in  the  Cisalpine  Alps 
in  Germany  for  the  late  New-Year  trade,  do  you  know  of 
whom  you  arc  talking  to?  We've  been  in  the  same  social 
circle,'  says  I,  'and  I've  put  up  with  you  because  you 
seemed  so  meek  and  self-unsatisfying.  I  don't  under 
stand  why  you  have  so  sudden  taken  a  personal  interest 
in  chivalrousnoss  and  murder.  Your  nature's  under 
gone  a  complete  revelation.  Now,  how  is  it?' 

"'Well,  3Tou  wouldn't  understand,  Ben,'  says  Willio, 
giving  one  of  his  refined  smiles  and  turning  away. 


160  Options 

"'Come  back  here  !'  says  I,  catching  him  by  the  tail  of 
his  khaki  coat.  'You've  made  me  kind  of  mad,  in  spite 
of  the  aloofness  in  which  I  have  heretofore  held  you.  You 
are  out  for  making  a  success  in  this  hero  business,  and  I 
believe  I  know  what  for.  You  are  doing  it  either  because 
you  are  crazy  or  because  you  expect  to  catch  some  girl  by 
it.  Now,  if  it's  a  girl,  I've  got  something  here  to  show 
you.' 

"I  wouldn't  have  done  it,  but  I  was  plumb  mad.  I 
pulled  a  San  Augustine  paper  out  of  my  hip-pocket,  and 
showed  him  an  item.  It  was  a  half  a  column  about  the 
marriage  of  Myra  Allison  and  Joe  Cranberry. 

"Willie  laughed,  and  I  saw  I  hadn't  touched  him. 

"'Oh,'  says  he,  'everybody  knew  that  was  going  to 
happen.  I  heard  about  that  a  week  ago.'  And  then  he 
gave  me  the  laugh  again. 

"  'All  right,'  says  I.  'Then  why  do  you  so  recklessly 
chase  the  bright  rainbow  of  fame?  Do  you  expect  to  be 
elected  President,  or  do  you  belong  to  a  suicide  club?' 

"And  then  Captain  Sam  interferes. 

"'You  gentlemen  quit  jawing  and  go  back  to  your 
quarters,'  says  he,  'or  I'll  have  you  escorted  to  the  guard 
house.  Now,  scat,  both  of  you !  Before  you  go,  which 
one  of  you  has  got  any  chewing-tobacco?' 

"  'We're  off,  Sam,  says  I.  'It's  supper-time,  anyhow. 
But  what  do  you  think  of  what  we  was  talking  about? 
I've  noticed  you  throwing  out  a  good  many  grappling- 
hooks  for  this  here  balloon  called  fame —  What's  am 
bition,  anyhow?  What  does  a  man  risk  his  life  day  after 
day  for?  Do  you  know  of  anything  he  gets  in  the  end 


The  Moment  of  Victory  161 

that  can  pay  him  for  the  trouble?  I  want  to  go  back 
home,'  says  I.  'I  don't  care  whether  Cuba  sinks  or  swims, 
and  I  don't  give  a  pipeful  of  rabbit  tobacco  whether 
Queen  Sophia  Christina  or  Charlie  Culberson  rules  these 
fairy  isles ;  and  I  don't  want  my  name  on  any  list  except 
the  list  of  survivors.  But  I've  noticed  you,  Sam,'  says 
I,  'seeking  the  bubble  of  notoriety  in  the  cannon's  larynx 
a  number  of  times.  Now,  what  do  you  do  it  for?  Is  it 
ambition,  business,  or  some  freckle-faced  Phoabe  at  home 
that  you  arc  heroing  for?' 

"  'Well,  Ben,'  says  Sam,  kind  of  hefting  his  sword  out 
from  between  his  knees,  'as  your  superior  officer  I  could 
court-martial  you  for  attempted  cowardice  and  deser 
tion.  But  I  won't.  And  I'll  tell  you  why  I'm  trying 
for  promotion  and  the  usual  honors  of  war  and  conquest. 
A  major  gets  more  pay  than  a  captain,  and  I  need  the 
money.' 

"  'Correct  for  you  !'  says  I.  'I  can  understand  that. 
Your  system  of  fame-seeking  is  rooted  in  the  deepest  soil 
of  patriotism.  But  I  can't  comprehend,'  says  I,  'why 
Willie  Robbins,  whose  folks  at  home  are  well  off,  and  who 
used  to  be  as  meek  and  undesirous  of  notice  as  a  cat  with 
cream  on  his  whiskers,  should  all  at  once  develop  into  a 
warrior  bold  with  the  most  fire-eating  kind  of  proclivi 
ties.  And  the  girl  in  his  case  seems  to  have  been  elim 
inated  by  marriage  to  another  fellow.  I  reckon,'  says 
I,  'it's  a  plain  case  of  just  common  ambition.  He  wants 
his  name,  maybe,  to  go  thundering  down  the  coroners  of 
time.  It  must  be  that.' 

"Well,  without  itemizing  his  deeds,  Willie  su»e  made 


162  Options 

good  as  a  hero.  He  simply  spent  most  of  his  time  on  his 
knees  begging  our  captain  to  send  him  on  forlorn  hopes 
and  dangerous  scouting  expeditions.  In  every  fight  he 
was  the  h'r*t  man  to  mix  it  at  close  quarters  with  the  Don 
Alfonsos.  He  got  three  or  four  bullets  planted  in  various 
parts  of  his  autonomy.  Once  he  went  off  with  a  detail  of 
eight  men  and  captured  a  whole  company  of  Spanish.  He 
kept  Captain  Floyd  busy  writing  out  recommendations 
of  his  bravery  to  send  in  to  headquarters  ;  and  he  began  to 
accumulate  medals  for  all  kinds  of  things  —  heroism  and 
target-shooting  and  valor  and  tactics  and  uninsubordina- 
tion,  and  all  the  little  accomplishments  that  look  good  to 
the  third  assistant  secretaries  of  the  War  Department. 

"Finally,  Cap  Floyd  got  promoted  to  be  a  major- 
general,  or  a  knight  commander  of  the  main  herd,  or 
something  like  that.  He  pounded  around  on  a  white 
horse,  all  desecrated  up  with  gold-leaf  and  hen-feathers 
and  a  Good  Templar's  hat,  and  wasn't  allowed  by  the 
regulations  to  speak  to  us.  And  Willie  Robbing  was 
made  captain  of  our  company. 

"And  maybe  he  didn't  go  after  the  wreath  of  fame  then  ! 
As  far  as  I  could  see  it  was  him  that  ended  the  war.  He 
got  eighteen  of  us  boys  —  friends  of  his,  too  —  killed  in 
battles  that  he  stirred  up  himself  and  that  didn't  seem  to 
me  necessary  at  all.  One  night  he  took  twelve  of  us  and 
waded  through  a  little  rill  about  a  hundred  and  ninety 
yards  wide,  and  climbed  a  couple  of  mountains,  and 
sneaked  through  a  mile  of  neglected  shrubbery  and  a 
couple  of  rock-quarries  and  into  a  rye-straw  village,  and 
captured  a  Spanish  general  named,  as  they  said,  Benny 


TJie  Moment  of  Victory  163 

Veedus.  Benny  seemed  to  me  hardly  worth  the  trouble, 
being  a  blackish  man  without  shoes  or  cuffs,  and  anxious 
to  surrender  and  throw  himself  on  the  commissary  of 
his  foe. 

"But  that  job  gave  Willie  the  big  boost  he  wanted. 
The  San  Augustine  News  and  the  Galveston,  St.  Louis, 
New  York,  and  Kansas  City  papers  printed  his  picture 
and  columns  of  stuff  about  him.  Old  San  Augustine  sim 
ply  went  crazy  over  its  'gallant  son.'  The  Nctcs  had  an 
editorial  tearfully  begging  the  Government  to  call  off  the 
regular  army  and  the  national  guard,  and  let  Willie  carry 
on  the  rest  of  the  war  single-handed.  It  said  that  a  re 
fusal  to  do  so  would  be  regarded  as  a  proof  that  the 
Northern  jealousy  of  the  South  was  still  as  rampant  as 
ever. 

"If  the  war  hadn't  ended  pretty  soon,  I  don't  know  to 
what  heights  of  gold  braid  and  encomiums  Willie  would 
have  climbed ;  but  it  did.  There  was  a  secession  of  hos 
tilities  just  three  days  after  he  was  appointed  a  colonel, 
and  got  in  three  more  medals  by  registered  mail  and  shot 
two  Spaniards  while  they  were  drinking  lemonade  in  an 
ambuscade. 

"Our  company  went  back  to  San  Augustine  when  the 
war  was  over.  There  wasn't  anywhere  else  for  it  to  go. 
And  what  do  you  think?  The  old  town  notified  us  in 
print,  by  wire  cable,  special  delivery,  and  a  nigger  named 
Saul  sent  on  a  gray  mule  to  San  Antone,  that  they  was 
going  to  give  us  the  biggest  blowout,  complimontary,  ali 
mentary,  and  elementary,  that  ever  disturbed  the  kildees 


164  Options 

on  the  sand-flats  outside  of  the  immediate  contiguity  of 
the  city. 

"I  say  'we,'  but  it  was  all  meant  for  ex-Private,  Cap 
tain  de  facto,  and  Colonel-elect  Willie  Robbins.  The 
town  was  crazy  about  him.  They  notified  us  that  the 
reception  they  were  going  to  put  up  would  make  the 
Mardi  Gras  in  New  Orleans  look  like  an  afternoon  tea  in 
Bury  St.  Edmonds  with  a  curate's  aunt. 

"Well,  the  San  Augustine  Rifles  got  back  home  on 
schedule  time.  Everybody  was  at  the  depot  giving  forth 
Roosevelt-Democrat  —  they  used  to  be  called  Rebel  — 
yells.  There  was  two  brass-bands,  and  the  mayor,  and 
schoolgirls  in  white  frightening  the  street-car  horses  by 
throwing  Cherokee  roses  in  the  streets,  and  —  well,  may 
be  you've  seen  a  celebration  by  a  town  that  was  inland 
and  out  of  water. 

"They  wanted  Brevet-Colonel  Willie  to  got  into  a 
carriage  and  be  drawn  by  prominent  citizens  and  some  of 
the  city  aldermen  to  the  armory,  but  he  stuck  to  his  com 
pany  and  marched  at  the  head  of  it  up  Sam  Houston 
Avenue.  The  buildings  on  both  sides  was  covered  with 
flags  and  audiences,  and  everybody  hollered  'Robbins !' 
or  'Hello,  Willie !'  as  we  marched  up  in  files  of  fours.  I 
never  saw  a  illustriouser -looking  human  in  my  life  than 
Willie  was.  He  had  at  least  seven  or  eight  medals  and 
diplomas  and  decorations  on  the  breast  of  his  khaki  coat ; 
he  was  sunburnt  the  color  of  a  saddle,  and  he  certainly 
done  himself  proud. 

"They  told  us  at  the  depot  that  the  courthouse  was  to 
be  illuminated  at  half-past  seven,  and  there  would  be 


The  Moment  of  Victory  165 

speeches  and  chili-con-carnc  at  the  Palace  Hotel.  Miss 
Delphinc  Thompson  was  to  read  an  original  poem  by 
James  Whitcomb  Ryan,  and  Constable  Hooker  had 
promised  us  a  salute  of  nine  guns  from  Chicago  that  he 
had  arrested  that  day. 

"After  we  had  disbanded  in  the  armory,  Willie  says  to 
me: 

"'Want  to  walk  out  a  piece  with  me?' 

"  'Why,  yes,'  says  I,  'if  it  ain't  so  far  that  we  can't 
hear  the  tumult  and  the  shouting  die  away.  I'm  hungry 
myself,'  says  I,  'and  I'm  pining  for  some  home  grub,  but 
I'll  go  with  you.' 

"Willie  steered  me  down  some  side  streets  till  we  came 
to  a  little  white  cottage  in  a  new  lot  with  a  twenty-by- 
thirty-foot  lawn  decorated  with  brickbats  and  old  bar 
rel-staves. 

"'Halt  and  give  the  countersign,'  says  I  to  Willie. 
*Don't  you  know  this  dugout?  It's  the  bird's-nest  that 
Joe  Granberry  built  before  he  married  Myra  Allison. 
What  you  going  there  for?' 

"But  Willie  already  had  the  gate  open.  He  walked  up 
the  brick  walk  to  the  steps,  and  I  went  with  him.  Myra 
was  sitting  in  a  rocking-chair  on  the  porch,  sewing.  Her 
hair  was  smoothed  back  kind  of  hasty  and  tied  in  a  knot. 
I  never  noticed  till  then  that  she  had  freckles.  Joe  was 
at  one  side  of  the  porch,  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  with  no  collar 
on,  and  no  signs  of  a  shave,  trying  to  scrape  out  a  hole 
among  the  brickbats  and  tin  cans  to  plant  a  little  fruit- 
tree  in.  He  looked  up  but  never  said  a  word,  and  neither 
did  Myra. 


166  Options 

"Willie  was  sure  dandy-looking  in  his  uniform,  with 
medals  strung  on  his  breast  and  his  new  gold-handled 
sword.  You'd  never  have  taken  him  for  the  little  white- 
headed  snipe  that  the  girls  used  to  order  about  and  make 
fun  of.  He  just  stood  there  for  a  minute,  looking  at 
JMyra  with  a  peculiar  little  smile  on  his  face ;  and  (hen  he 
says  to  her,  slow,  and  kind  of  holding  on  to  his  words  with 
his  teeth: 

"  'Oh,  I  don't  know!     Maybe  I  could  if  I  tried!' 

"That  was  all  that  was  said.  Willie  raised  his  hat, 
and  we  walked  away. 

"And,  somehow,  when  he  said  that,  I  remembered,  all 
of  a  sudden,  the  night  of  that  dance  and  Willie  brushing 
his  hair  before  the  looking-glass,  and  },Iyr.i  sticking  her 
head  in  the  door  to  guy  him. 

"When  we  got  back  to  Sam  Houston  Avenue,  Willie 
says : 

"  'Well,  so  long,  Ben.  I'm  going  down  home  and  get 
off  my  shoes  and  take  a  rest.' 

"  'You ?'  says  I.  'What's  the  matter  with  you?  Ain't 
the  courthouse  jammed  with  everybody  in  town  waiting 
to  honor  the  hero  ?  And  two  brass-bands,  and  recitations 
and  flags  and  jags,  and  grub  to  follow  waiting  for  you?' 

"Willie  sighs. 

"  'All  right,  Ben,'  says  he.  'Darned  if  I  didn't  forget 
all  about  that.' 

"And  that's  why  I  say,"  concluded  Ben  Granger,  "that 
you  can't  tell  where  ambition  begins  any  more  than  you 
can  where  it  is  going  to  wind  up." 


THE  HEAD-HUNTER 

WilEN  the  war  between  Spain  and  George  Dewey  was 
over,  I  went  to  the  Philippine  Islands.  There  I  remained 
as  bush-whacker  correspondent  for  my  paper  until  its 
managing  editor  notified  me  that  an  cight-hundred-word 
cablegram  describing  the  grief  of  a  pet  carabao  over  the 
death  of  an  infant  Moro  was  not  considered  by  the  office 
to  be  war  news.  So  I  resigned,  and  came  home. 

On  board  the  trading-vessel  that  brought  me  back  I 
pondered  much  upon  the  strange  things  I  had  sensed  in 
the  weird  archipelago  of  the  yellow-brown  people.  The 
manoeuvres  and  skirmishings  of  the  petty  war  interested 
me  not :  I  was  spellbound  by  the  outlandish  and  unread 
able  countenance  of  that  race  that  had  turned  its  expres 
sionless  gaze  upon  us  out  of  an  unguessable  past. 

Particularly  during  my  stay  in  Mindanao  had  I  been 
fascinated  and  attracted  by  that  delightfully  original 
tribe  of  heathen  known  as  the  head-hunters.  Those  grim, 
flinty,  relentless  little  men,  never  seen,  but  chilling  the 
warmest  noonday  by  the  subtle  terror  of  their  concealed 
presence,  paralleling  the  trail  of  their  prey  through 
unmapped  forests,  across  perilous  mountain-tops,  adown 
bottomless  chasms,  into  uninhabitable  jungles,  always 
near  with  the  invisible  hand  of  death  uplifted,  betraying 

their  pursuit  only  by  such  signs  as  a  beast  or  a  bird  or  a 

181 


168  Options 

gliding  serpent  might  make  —  a  twig  crackling  in  the 
awful  sweat-soaked  night,  a  drench  of  dew  showering  from 
the  screening  foliage  of  a  giant  tree,  a  whisper  at  even 
from  the  rushes  of  a  water-level  —  a  hint  of  death  for 
every  mile  and  every  hour  —  they  amused  me  greatly, 
those  little  fellows  of  one  idea. 

When  you  think  of  it,  their  method  is  beautifully  and 
almost  hilariously  effective  and  simple. 

You  have  your  hut  in  which  you  live  and  carry  out  the 
destiny  that  was  decreed  for  you.  Spiked  to  the  jamb  of 
your  bamboo  doorway  is  a  basket  made  of  green  withes, 
plaited.  From  time  to  time  as  vanity  or  ennui  or  love  or 
jealousy  or  ambition  may  move  you,  you  creep  forth 
with  your  snickersnee  and  take  up  the  silent  trail.  Back 
from  it  you  come,  triumphant,  bearing  the  severed,  gory 
head  of  your  victim,  which  you  deposit  with  pardonable 
pride  in  the  basket  at  the  side  of  your  door.  It  may  be 
the  head  of  your  enemy,  }Tour  friend,  or  a  stranger,  ac 
cording  as  competition,  jealousy,  or  simple  sportiveness 
has  been  your  incentive  to  labor. 

In  any  case,  your  reward  is  certain.  The  village  men, 
in  passing,  stop  to  congratulate  you,  as  your  neighbor  on 
weaker  planes  of  life  stops  to  admire  and  praise  the  bego 
nias  in  your  front  yard.  Your  particular  brown  maid 
lingers,  with  fluttering  bosom,  casting  soft  tiger's  eyes  at 
the  evidence  of  your  love  for  her.  You  chew  betel-nut 
and  listen,  content,  to  the  intermittent  soft  drip  from  the 
ends  of  the  severed  neck  arteries.  And  you  show  your 
teeth  and  grunt  like  a  water-buffalo  —  which  is  as  near 


The  Head-Hunter  169 

as  you  can  come  to  laughing — at  the  thought  that  the 
cold,  acephalous  body  of  your  door  ornament  is  being 
spotted  by  wheeling  vultures  in  the  Mindanaoan  wilds. 

Truly,  the  life  of  the  merry  head-hunter  captivated  me. 
He  had  reduced  art  and  philosophy  to  a  simple  code.  To 
take  your  adversary's  head,  to  basket  it  at  the  portal  of 
your  castle,  to  see  it  lying  there,  a  dead  thing,  with  its 
cunning  and  stratagems  and  power  gone —  Is  there  a 
better  way  to  foil  his  plots,  to  refute  his  arguments,  to 
establish  your  superiority  over  his  skill  and  wisdom? 

The  ship  that  brought  me  home  was  captained  by  an 
erratic  Swede,  who  changed  his  course  and  deposited  me, 
with  genuine  compassion,  in  a  small  town  on  the  Pacific 
coast  of  one  of  the  Central  American  republics,  a  few 
hundred  miles  south  of  the  port  to  which  he  had  engaged 
to  convey  me.  But  I  was  wearied  of  movement  and  exotic 
fancies ;  so  I  leaped  contentedly  upon  the  firm  sands  of 
the  village  of  Mojada,  telling  myself  I  should  be  sure  to 
find  there  the  rest  that  I  craved.  After  all,  far  better  to 
linger  there  (I  thought),  lulled  by  the  sedative  plash  of 
the  waves  and  the  rustling  of  palm-fronds,  than  to  sit 
upon  the  horsehair  sofa  of  my  parental  home  in  the  East, 
and  there,  cast  down  by  currant  wine  and  cake,  and 
scourged  by  fatuous  relatives,  drivel  into  the  ears  of  gap 
ing  neighbors  sad  stories  of  the  death  of  colonial  gov 
ernors. 

When  first  I  saw  Chloe  Greene  she  was  standing,  all  in 
white,  in  the  doorway  of  her  father's  tile-roofed  'dobe 


170  Options 

house.  She  was  polishing  a  silver  cup  with  a  cloth,  and 
she  looked  like  a  pearl  laid  against  black  velvet.  She 
turned  on  me  a  flatteringly  protracted  but  a  wiltingly 
disapproving  gaze,  and  then  went  inside,  humming  a  light 
song  to  indicate  the  value  she  placed  upon  my  existence. 

Small  wonder:  for  Dr.  Starnfard  (the  most  disreput 
able  professional  man  between  Juneau  and  Valparaiso) 
and  I  were  zigzagging  along  the  turfy  street,  tunelessly 
singing  the  words  of  "Auld  Lang  Sync"  to  the  air  of 
"buzzer's  Little  Coal-Black  Coon."  We  had  come  from 
the  ice  factory,  which  was  Mojada's  palace  of  wicked 
ness,  where  we  had  been  playing  billiards  and  opening 
black  bottles,  white  with  frost,  that  we  dragged  with 
strings  out  of  old  Sandoval's  ice-cold  vats. 

I  turned  in  sudden  rage  to  Dr.  Stamford,  as  sober  as 
the  verger  of  a  cathedral.  In  a  moment  I  had  become 
aware  that  we  were  swine  cast  before  a  pearl. 

"You  beast,"  I  said,  "this  is  half  your  doing.  And  the 
other  half  is  the  fault  of  this  cursed  country.  I'd  better 
have  gone  back  to  Sleepytown  and  died  in  a  wild  orgy  of 
currant  wine  and  buns  than  to  have  had  this  happen." 

Stamford  filled  the  empty  street  with  his  roaring 
laughter. 

"You,  too !"  he  cried.  "And  all  as  quick  as  the  pop 
ping  of  a  cork.  Well,  she  does  seem  to  strike  agreeably 
upon  the  retina.  But  don't  burn  your  fingers.  All 
Mojada  will  tell  you  that  Louis  Dcvoe  is  the  man." 

"We  will  see  about  that,"  said  I.  "And,  perhaps, 
whether  he  is  a  man  as  well  a.»  the  man." 


The  Head-Hunter  171 

I  lost  no  time  in  meeting  Louis  Devoe.  That  was  easily 
accomplished,  for  the  foreign  colony  in  Mojada  num 
bered  scarce  a  dozen ;  and  they  gathered  daily  at  a  half- 
decent  hotel  kept  by  a  Turk,  where  they  managed  to  patch 
together  the  fluttering  rags  of  country  and  civilization 
that  were  left  them.  I  sought  Devoe  before  I  did  my 
]:-jarl  of  the  doorway,  because  I  had  learned  a  little  of  the 
/;ame  of  war,  and  knew  better  than  to  strike  for  a  prize 
before  testing  the  strength  of  the  enemy. 

A  sort  of  cold  dismay  —  something  akin  to  fear  — 
filled  me  when  I  had  estimated  him.  I  found  a  man  so 
perfectly  poised,  so  charming,  so  deeply  learned  in  the 
world's  rituals,  so  full  of  tact,  courtesy,  and  hospitality, 
so  endowed  with  grace  and  case  and  a  kind  of  careless, 
haughty  poivcr  that  I  almost  over-stepped  the  bounds  in 
probing  him,  in  turning  him  on  the  spit  to  find  the  weak 
point  that  I  so  craved  for  him  to  have.  But  I  left  him 
whole  —  I  had  to  make  bitter  acknowledgment  to  myself 
that  Louis  Devoe  was  a  gentleman  worthy  of  my  hest 
blows ;  and  I  swore  to  give  him  them.  He  was  a  great 
merchant  of  the  country,  a  wealthy  importer  and  ex 
porter.  All  day  he  sat  in  a  fastidiously  appointed 
office,  surrounded  by  works  of  art  and  evidences  of  his 
high  culture,  directing  through  glass  doors  aad  windows 
the  affairs  of  his  house. 

In  person  he  was  slender  and  hardly  tall.  His  small, 
well-shaped  head  was  covered  with  thick,  brown  hair, 
trimmed  short,  and  he  wore  a  thick,  brown  beard  also  cut 
close  and  to  a  fine  point.  His  manners  were  a  pattern. 


172  Options 

Before  long  I  had  become  a  regular  and  a  welcome 
visitor  at  the  Greene  home.  I  shook  my  wild  habits  from 
me  like  a  worn-out  cloak.  I  trained  for  the  conflict  with 
the  care  of  a  prize-fighter  and  the  self-denial  of  a  Brah 
min. 

As  for  Chloe  Greene,  I  shall  weary  you  with  no  sonnets 
to  her  eyebrow.  She  was  a  splendidly  feminine  girl,  as 
wholesome  as  a  November  pippin,  and  no  more  mysteri 
ous  than  a  window-pane.  She  had  whimsical  little  theo 
ries  that  she  had  deduced  from  life,  and  that  fitted  the 
maxims  of  Epictetus  like  princess  gowns.  I  wonder, 
after  all,  if  that  old  duffer  wasn't  rather  wise! 

Chloe  had  a  father,  the  Reverend  Homer  Greene,  and 
an  intermittent  mother,  who  sometimes  palely  presided 
over  a  twilight  teapot.  The  Reverend  Homer  was  a 
burr-like  man  with  a  life-work.  He  was  writing  a  con 
cordance  to  the  Scriptures,  and  had  arrived  as  far  as 
Kings.  Being,  presumably,  a  suitor  for  his  daughter's 
hand,  I  was  timber  for  his  literary  outpourings.  I  had 
the  family  tree  of  Israel  drilled  into  my  head  until  I  used 
to  cry  aloud  in  my  sleep:  "And  Aminadab  begat  Jay 
Eye  See,"  and  so  forth,  until  he  had  tackled  another 
book.  I  once  made  a  calculation  that  the  Reverend 
Homer's  concordance  would  be  worked  up  as  far  as  the 
Seven  Vials  mentioned  in  Revelations  about  the  third 
day  after  they  were  opened. 

Louis  Devoe,  as  well  as  I,  was  a  visitor  and  an  intimate 
friend  of  the  Greenes.  It  was  there  I  met  him  the 


TJie  Head-Hunter  173 

oftenest,  and  a  more  agreeable  man  or  a  more  accom 
plished  I  have  never  hated  in  my  life. 

Luckily  or  unfortunately,  I  came  to  be  accepted  as  a 
Boy.  My  appearance  was  youthful,  and  I  suppose  I 
had  that  pleading  and  homeless  air  that  always  draws 
the  motherlincss  that  is  in  women  and  the  cursed  theories 
and  hobbies  of  paterfamilias. 

Chloe  called  me  "Tommy,"  and  made  sisterly  fun  of 
my  attempts  to  woo  her.  With  Devoe  she  was  vastly 
more  reserved.  He  was  the  man  of  romance,  one  to  stir 
her  imagination  and  deepest  feelings  had  her  fancy 
leaned  toward  him.  I  was  closer  to  her,  but  standing  in 
no  glamour ;  I  had  the  task  before  me  of  winning  her  in 
what  seems  to  me  the  American  way  of  fighting  —  with 
cleanness  and  pluck  and  every-day  devotion  to  break 
away  the  barriers  of  friendship  that  divided  us,  and  to 
take  her,  if  I  could,  between  sunrise  and  dark,  abetted 
by  neither  moonlight  nor  music  nor  foreign  wiles. 

Chloe  gave  no  sign  of  bestowing  her  blithe  affections 
upon  either  of  us.  But  one  day  she  let  out  to  me  an 
inkling  of  what  she  preferred  in  a  man.  It  was  tre 
mendously  interesting  to  me,  but  not  illuminating  as  to 
its  application.  I  had  been  tormenting  her  for  the 
dozenth  time  with  the  statement  and  catalogue  of  my 
sentiments  toward  her. 

"Tommy,"  said  she,  "I  don't  want  a  man  to  show  his 
love  for  me  by  leading  an  army  against  another  country 
and  blowing  people  off  the  earth  with  cannons." 


174  Options 

"If  you  mean  that  the  opposite  way,**  I  answered,  "as 
they  say  women  do,  I'll  see  what  I  can  do.  The  papers 
are  full  of  this  diplomatic  row  in  Russia.  My  people 
know  some  big  people  in  Washington  who  are  right  next 
to  the  army  people,  and  I  could  get  an  artillery  commis 
sion  and " 

"I'm  not  that  way,"  interrupted  Chloe.  "I  mean 
what  I  say.  It  isn't  the  big  tilings  that  are  done  in  the 
world,  Tommy,  that  count  with  a  woman.  When  the 
knights  were  riding  abroad  in  their  armor  to  slay  drag 
ons,  many  a  stay-at-home  page  won  a  lonesome  lady's 
hand  by  being  on  the  spot  to  pick  up  her  glove  and  be 
quick  with  her  cloak  when  the  wind  blew.  The  man  I  am 
to  like  best,  whoever  he  shall  be,  must  show  his  love  in 
little  ways.  He  must  never  forget,  after  hearing  it  once, 
that  I  do  not  like  to  have  any  one  walk  at  my  left  side ; 
that  I  detest  bright-colored  neckties;  that  I  prefer  to 
sit  with  my  back  to  a  light ;  that  I  like  candied  violets ; 
that  I  must  not  be  talked  to  when  I  am  looking  at  the 
moonlight  shining  on  water,  and  that  I  very,  very  often 
long  for  dates  stuffed  with  English  walnuts." 

"Frivolity,"  I  said,  with  a  frown.  "Any  well-trained 
servant  would  be  equal  to  such  details." 

"And  he  must  remember,"  went  on  Chloe,  "to  remind 
me  of  what  I  want  when  I  do  not  know,  myself,  what  I 
want." 

"You're  rising  in  the  scale,"  I  said.  "What  you 
seem  to  need  is  a  first-class  clairvoyant." 

"And  if  I  say  that  I  am  dying  to  hear  a  Beethoven 


The  Head-Hunter  175 

sonata,  and  stamp  my  foot  when  I  say  it,  he  must  know 
by  that  that  what  my  soul  craves  is  salted  almonds ; 
and  he  will  have  them  ready  in  his  pocket." 

"Now,"  said  I,  "I  am  at  a  loss.  I  do  not  know 
whether  your  soul's  affinity  is  to  be  an  impresario  or  a 
fancy  grocer." 

Chloe  turned  her  pearly  smile  upon  me. 

"Take  less  than  half  of  what  I  said  as  a  jest,"  she 
went  on.  "And  don't  think  too  lightly  of  the  little 
things,  Boy.  Be  a  paladin  if  you  must,  but  don't  let  it 
show  on  you.  Most  women  are  only  very  big  children, 
and  most  men  are  only  very  little  ones.  Please  use ;  don't 
try  to  overpower  us.  When  we  want  a  hero  we  can  make 
one  out  of  even  a  plain  grocer  the  third  time  he  catches 
our  handkerchief  before  it  falls  to  the  ground." 

That  evening  I  was  taken  down  with  pernicious  fever. 
That  is  a  kind  of  coast  fever  with  improvements  and 
high-geared  attachments.  Your  temperature  goes  up 
among  the  threes  and  fours  and  remains  there,  laughing 
scornfully  and  feverishly  at  the  cinchona  trees  and  the 
coal-tar  derivatives.  Pernicious  fever  is  a  case  for  a 
simple  mathematician  instead  of  a  doctor.  It  is  merely 
this  formula :  Vitality  -{-  the  desire  to  live  —  the  dura 
tion  of  the  f ever  =  the  result. 

I  took  to  my  bed  in  the  two-roomed  thatched  hut 
where  I  had  been  comfortably  established,  and  sent  for 
a  gallon  of  rum.  That  was  not  for  myself.  Drunk, 
Stamford  was  the  best  doctor  between  the  Andes  and 


176  Options 

the  Pacific.  He  came,  sat  at  my  beside,  and  drank 
himself  into  condition. 

"My  boy,"  said  he,  "my  lily-white  and  reformed 
Romeo,  medicine  will  do  you  no  good.  But  I  will  give 
you  quinine,  which,  being  bitter,  will  arouse  in  you  hatred 
and  anger  —  two  stimulants  that  will  add  ten  per  cent, 
to  your  chances.  You  are  as  strong  as  a  caribou  calf, 
and  you  will  get  well  if  the  fever  doesn't  get  in  a  knock 
out  blow  when  you're  off  your  guard." 

For  two  weeks  I  lay  on  my  back  feeling  like  a  Hindoo 
widow  on  a  burning  ghat.  Old  Atasca,  an  untrained 
Indian  nurse,  sat  near  the  door  like  a  petrified  statue  of 
What's-the-Usc,  attending  to  her  duties,  which  were, 
mainly,  to  see  that  time  went  by  without  slipping  a  cog. 
Sometimes  I  would  fancy  myself  back  in  the  Philippines, 
or,  at  worse  times,  sliding  off  the  horsechair  sofa  in 
Sleepytown. 

One  afternoon  I  ordered  Atasca  to  vamose,  and  got  up 
and  dressed  carefully.  I  took  my  temperature,  which  I 
was  pleased  to  find  104.  I  paid  almost  dainty  attention 
to  my  dress,  choosing  solicitousty  a  necktie  of  a  dull  and 
subdued  hue.  The  mirror  showed  that  I  was  looking 
little  the  worse  from  my  illness.  The  fever  gave  bright 
ness  to  my  eyes  and  color  to  my  face.  And  while  I 
looked  at  my  reflection  my  color  went  and  came  again  as 
I  thought  of  Chloe  Greene  and  the  millions  of  eons  that 
had  passed  since  I'd  seen  her,  and  of  Louis  Devoe  and 
the  time  he  had  gained  on  me. 

I  went  straight  to  her  house.     I  seemed  to  float  rather 


The  Head-Hunter  177 

than  walk;  I  hardly  felt  the  ground  under  my  feet;  I 
thought  pernicious  fever  must  be  a  great  boon  to  make 
one  feel  so  strong. 

I  found  Chloe  and  Louis  Devoe  sitting  under  the  awn 
ing  in  front  of  the  house.  She  jumped  up  and  met  me 
with  a  double  handshake. 

"I'm  glad,  glad,  glad  to  see  you  out  again !"  she  cried, 
every  word  a  pearl  strung  on  the  string  of  her  sentence. 
"You  are  well,  Tommy  —  or  better,  of  course.  I  wanted 
to  come  to  see  you,  but  they  wouldn't  let  me." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  I,  carelessly,  "it  was  nothing.  Merely 
a  little  fever.  I  am  out  again,  as  you  see." 

We  three  sat  there  and  talked  for  half  an  hour  or  so. 
Then  Chloe  looked  out  yearningly  and  almost  piteously 
across  the  ocean.  I  could  see  in  her  sea-blue  eyes  some 
deep  and  intense  desire.  Devoe,  curse  him !  saw  it  too. 

"What  is  it  ?"  we  asked,  in  unison. 

"Cocoanut-pudding,"  said  Chloe,  pathetically.  "I've 
wanted  some  —  oh,  so  badly,  for  two  days.  It's  got  be 
yond  a  wish ;  it's  an  obsession." 

"The  cocoanut  season  is  over,"  said  Devoe,  in  that 
voice  of  his  that  gave  thrilling  interest  to  his  most  com 
monplace  words.  "I  hardly  think  one  could  be  found  in 
Mojada.  The  natives  never  use  them  except  when  they 
are  green  and  the  milk  is  fresh.  They  sell  all  the  ripe 
ones  to  the  fruiterers." 

"Wouldn't  a  broiled  lobster  or  a  Welsh  rabbit  do  as 
well?"  I  remarked,  with  the  engaging  idiocy  of  a  perni 
cious-fever  convalescent. 


178  Options 

Chloe  earae  as  near  pouting  as  a  sweet  disposition  and 
a  perfect  profile  would  allow  her  to  come. 

The  Reverend  Homer  poked  his  ermine-lined  face 
through  the  doorway  and  added  a  concordance  to  the 
conversation. 

"Sometimes,"  said  he,  "old  Campos  keeps  the  dried 
nuts  in  his  little  store  on  the  hill.  But  it  would  be  far 
better,  my  daughter,  to  restrain  unusual  desires,  and 
partake  thankfully  of  the  daily  dishes  that  the  Lord 
has  set  before  us." 

"Stuff!"  said  I. 

"How  was  that  ?"  asked  the  Reverend  Homer,  sharply. 

"I  say  it's  tough,"  said  I,  "to  drop  into  the  vernacular, 
that  Miss  Greene  should  be  deprived  of  the  food  she 
desires  —  a  simple  thing  like  kalsomine-pudding.  Per 
haps,"  I  continued,  solicitously,  "some  pickled  walnuts 
or  a  fricassee  of  Hungarian  butternuts  would  do  as 
well." 

Every  one  looked  at  me  with  a  slight  exhibition  of 
curiosity. 

Louis  Devoe  arose  and  made  his  adieus.  I  watched 
him  until  he  had  sauntered  slowly  and  grandiosely  to  the 
corner,  around  which  he  turned  to  reach  his  great  ware 
house  and  store.  Chloe  made  her  excuses,  and  went  in 
side  for  a  few  minutes  to  attend  to  some  detail  affecting 
the  seven-o'clock  dinner.  She  was  a  passed  mistress  in 
housekeeping.  I  had  tasted  her  puddings  and  bread 
with  beatitude. 

When  all  had  gone,  I  turned  casually  and  saw  a  basket 


The  Head-Hunter  179 

made  of  plaited  green  withes  hanging  by  a  nail  outside 
the  door- jamb.  With  a  rush  that  made  my  hot  temples 
throb  there  came  vividly  to  my  mind  recollections  of  the 
head-hunters  —  those  grim,  flinty,  relentless  little  men, 
never  seen  but  chilling  the  warmest  noonday  by  the 
subtle  terror  of  their  concealed  presence. 
From  time  to  time,  as  •vanity  or  ennui  or  lore  or  jealousy 
or  ambition  may  move  him,  one  creeps  forth  with  his 
snickersnee  and  takes  up  the  silent  trail.  .  .  . 
Back  he  comes,  triumphant,  bearing  the  severed,  gory 
head  of  his  "victim.  .  .  .  His  particular  brown  or 
white  maid  lingers,  with  fluttering  bosom,  casting  soft 
tiger 's  eyes  at  the  evidence  of  his  love  for  her. 

I  stole  softly  from  the  house  and  returned  to  my  hut. 
From  its  supporting  nails  in  the  wall  I  took  a  machete 
as  heavy  as  a  butcher's  cleaver  and  sharper  than  a 
safety-razor.  And  then  I  chuckled  softly  to  myself,  and 
set  out  to  the  fastidiously  appointed  private  office  of 
Monsieur  Louis  Devoe,  usurper  to  the  hand  of  the  Pearl 
of  the  Pacific. 

He  was  never  slow  at  thinking ;  he  gave  one  look  at  my 
face  and  another  at  the  weapon  in  my  hand  as  I  entered 
his  door,  and  then  he  seemed  to  fade  from  my  sight.  I 
ran  to  the  back  door,  kicked  it  open,  and  saw  him  running 
like  a  deer  up  the  road  toward  the  wood  that  began  two 
hundred  yards  away.  I  was  after  him,  with  a  shout.  I 
remember  hearing  children  and  women  screaming,  and 
seeing  them  flying  from  the  road. 

He  was  fleet,  but  I  was  stronger.     A  mile,  and  I  had 


180  Options 

almost  come  up  with  him.  He  doubled  cunningly  and 
dashed  into  a  brake  that  extended  into  a  small  canon.  I 
crashed  through  this  after  him,  and  in  five  minutes  had 
him  cornered  in  an  angle  of  insurmountable  cliffs.  There 
his  instinct  of  self-preservation  steadied  him,  as  it  will 
steady  even  animals  at  bay.  He  turned  to  me,  quite 
calm,  with  a  ghastly  smile. 

"Oh,  Rayburn !"  he  said,  with  such  an  awful  effort  at 
ease  that  I  was  impolite  enough  to  laugh  rudely  in  his 
face.  "Oh,  Rayburn!"  said  he,  "come,  let's  have  done 
with  this  nonsense !  Of  course,  I  know  it's  the  fever  and 
you're  not  yourself;  but  collect  yourself,  man  —  give 
me  that  ridiculous  weapon,  now,  and  let's  go  back  and 
t*lk  it  over." 

"I  will  go  back,"  said  I,  "carrying  your  head  with  me. 
We  will  see  how  charmingly  it  can  discourse  when  it  lies 
in  the  basket  at  her  door." 

"Come,"  said  he,  persuasively,  "I  think  better  of  you 
than  to  suppose  that  you  try  this  sort  of  thing  as  a  joke. 
But  even  the  vagaries  of  a  fever-crazed  lunatic  come 
some  time  to  a  limit.  What  is  this  talk  about  heads  and 
baskets?  Get  yourself  together  and  throw  away  that 
absurd  cane-chopper.  What  would  Miss  Greene  think 
of  you?"  he  ended,  with  the  silky  cajolery  that  one 
would  use  toward  a  fretful  child. 

"Listen,"  said  I.  "At  last  you  have  struck  upon  the 
right  note.  What  would  she  think  of  me?  Listen,"  I 
repeated. 


The  Head-Hunter  181 

"There  are  women,"  I  said,  "who  look  upon  horse 
hair  sofas  and  currant  wine  as  dross.  To  them  even  the 
calculated  modulation  of  your  well-trimmed  talk  sounds 
like  the  dropping  of  rotton  plums  from  a  tree  in  the  night. 
They  are  the  maidens  who  walk  back  and  forth  in  the 
villages,  scorning  the  emptiness  of  the  baskets  at  the 
doors  of  the  young  men  who  would  win  them.  One,  such 
as  they,"  I  said,  "is  waiting.  Only  a  fool  wrould  try  to 
win  a  woman  by  drooling  like  a  braggart  in  her  doorway 
or  by  waiting  upon  her  whims  like  a  footman.  They  are 
all  daughters  of  Herodias,  and  to  gain  their  hearts'  one 
must  lay  the  heads  of  his  enemies  before  them  with  his 
own  hands.  Now,  bend  your  neck,  Louis  Devoe.  Do 
not  be  a  coward  as  well  as  a  chatterer  at  a  lady's  tea- 
table." 

"There,  there !"  said  Devoe,  falteringly.  "You  know 
me,  don't  you,  Rayburn?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  I  said,  "I  know  you.  I  know  you.  I  know 
you.  But  the  basket  is  empty.  The  old  men  of  the  vil 
lage  and  the  young  men,  and  both  the  dark  maidens  and 
the  ones  who  are  as  fair  as  pearls,  walk  back  and  forth 
and  see  its  emptiness.  Will  you  kneel  now,  or  must  we 
have  a  scuffle?  It  is  not  like  you  to  make  things  go 
roughly  and  with  bad  form.  But  the  basket  is  waiting 
for  your  head." 

With  that  he  went  to  pieces.  I  had  to  catch  him  as 
he  tried  to  scamper  past  me  like  a  scared  rabbit.  I 
stretched  him  out  and  got  a  foot  on  his  chest,  but  he 


182  Options 

squirmed  like  a  worm,  although  I  appealed  repeatedly 
to  his  sense  of  propriety  and  the  duty  he  owed  to  him 
self  as  a  gentleman  not  to  make  a  row. 

But  at  last  he  gave  me  the  chance,  and  I  swung  the 
machete. 

It  was  not  hard  work.  He  flopped  like  a  chicken  dur 
ing  the  six  or  seven  blows  that  it  took  to  sever  his  head ; 
but  finally  he  lay  still,  and  I  tied  his  head  in  my  handker 
chief.  The  eyes  opened  and  shut  thrice  while  I  walked 
a  hundred  yards.  I  was  red  to  my  feet  with  the  drip, 
but  what  did  that  matter?  With  delight  I  felt  under  my 
hands  the  crisp  touch  of  his  short,  thick,  brown  hair  and 
close-trimmed  beard. 

I  reached  the  house  of  the  Greenes  and  dumped  the 
head  of  Louis  Devoe  into  the  basket  that  still  hung  by 
the  nail  in  the  door- jamb.  I  sat  in  a  chair  under  the 
awning  and  waited.  The  sun  was  within  two  hours  of 
setting.  Chloe  came  out  and  looked  surprised. 

"Where  have  you  been,  Tommy?"  she  asked.  "You 
were  gone  when  I  came  out." 

"Look  in  the  basket,"  I  said,  rising  to  my  feet.  She 
looked,  and  gave  a  little  scream  —  of  delight,  I  was 
pleased  to  note. 

"Oh,  Tommy  !"  she  said.  "It  was  just  what  I  wanted 
you  to  do.  It's  leaking  a  little,  but  that  doesn't  matter. 
Wasn't  I  telling  you?  It's  the  little  things  that  count. 
And  you  remembered." 

Little  things  !  She  held  the  ensanguined  head  of  Louis 
Devoe  in  her  white  apron.  Tiny  streams  of  red  widened 


The  Head-Hunter  183 

on  her  apron  and  dripped  upon  the  floor.  Her  face  was 
bright  and  tender. 

"Little  things,  indeed !"  I  thought  again.  "The  head- 
hunters  are  right.  These  are  the  things  that  women  like 
you  to  do  for  them." 

Chloe  came  close  to  me.  There  was  no  one  in  sight. 
She  looked  up  at  me  with  sea-blue  eyes  that  said  ihings 
they  had  never  said  before. 

"You  think  of  me,"  she  said.  "You  are  the  man  I  was 
describing.  You  think  of  the  little  things,  and  they  are 
what  make  the  world  worth  living  in.  The  man  for  me 
must  consider  my  little  wishes,  and  make  me  happy  in 
small  ways.  He  must  bring  me  little  red  peaches  in 
December  if  I  wish  for  them,  and  then  I  will  love  him  till 
June.  I  will  have  no  knight  in  armor  slaying  his  rival  or 
killing  dragons  for  me.  You  please  me  very  well, 
Tommy." 

I  stooped  and  kissed  her.  Then  a  moisture  broke  out 
on  my  forehead,  and  I  began  to  feel  weak.  I  saw  the  red 
stains  vanish  from  Chloe's  apron,  and  the  head  of  Louis 
Devoe  turn  to  a  brown,  dried  cocoanut. 

"There  will  be  cocoanut-pudding  for  dinner,  Tommy, 
boy,"  said  Chloe,  gayly,  "and  you  must  come.  I  must 
go  in  for  a  little  while." 

She  vanished  in  a  delightful  flutter. 

Dr.  Stamford  tramped  up  hurriedly.  He  seized  my 
pulse  as  though  it  were  his  own  property  that  I  had  es 
caped  with. 

"You  are  the  biggest  fool  outside  of  any  asylum !"  he 


184  Options 

said,  angrily.  "Why  did  you  leave  your  bed?  And 
the  idiotic  things  you've  been  doing!  —  and  no  wonder, 
with  your  pulse  going  like  a  sledge-hammer." 

"Name  some  of  them,"  said  I. 

"Devoe  sent  for  me,"  said  Stamford.  "He  saw  you 
from  his  window  go  to  old  Campos'  store,  chase  him  up 
the  hill  with  his  own  yard-stick,  and  then  come  back 
and  make  off  with  his  biggest  cocoanut." 

"It's  the  little  things  that  count,  after  all,"  said  I. 

"It's  your  little  bed  that  counts  with  you  just  now," 
said  the  doctor.  "You  come  with  me  at  once,  or  I'll 
throw  up  the  case.  You're  as  loony  as  a  loon." 

So  I  got  no  cocoanut-pudding  that  evening,  but  I  con 
ceived  a  distrust  as  to  the  value  of  the  method  of  the 
head-hunters.  Perhaps  for  many  centuries  the  maidens 
of  the  villages  may  have  been  looking  wistfully  at  the 
heads  in  the  baskets  at  the  doorways,  longing  for  other 
and  lesser  trophies. 


NO  STORY 

To  AVOID  having  this  book  hurled  into  a  corner  of  the 
room  by  the  suspicious  reader,  I  will  assert  in  time  that 
this  is  not  a  newspaper  story.  You  will  encounter  no 
shirt-sleeved,  omniscient  city  editor,  no  prodigy  "cub" 
reporter  just  off  the  farm,  no  scoop,  no  story  —  no  any 
thing. 

But  if  you  will  concede  me  the  setting  of  the  first  scene 
in  the  reporters'  room  of  the  Morning  Beacon,  I  will 
repay  the  favor  by  keeping  strictly  my  promises  set 
forth  above. 

I  was  doing  space-work  on  the  Beacon,  hoping  to  be 
put  on  a  salary.  Some  one  had  cleared  with  a  rake  or  a 
shovel  a  small  space  for  me  at  the  end  of  a  long  table 
piled  high  with  exchanges,  Congressional  Records,  and 
old  files.  There  I  did  my  work.  I  wrote  whatever  the 
city  whispered  or  roared  or  chuckled  to  me  on  my  diligent 
wandering's  about  its  streets.  My  income  was  not  regu 
lar. 

One  day  Tripp  came  in  and  leaned  on  my  table.  Tripp 
was  something  in  the  mechanical  department  —  I  think 
he  had  something  to  do  with  the  pictures,  for  he  smclled 
of  photographers'  supplies,  and  his  hands  were  always 
stained  and  cut  up  with  acids.  He  was  about  twenty- 
five  and  looked  forty.  Half  of  his  face  was  covered  with 
short,  curly  red  whiskers  that  looked  like  a  door-mat 

185 


186  Options 

with  the  "welcome"  left  off.  He  was  pale  and  unhealthy 
and  miserable  and  fawning,  and  an  assiduous  borrower 
of  sums  ranging  from  twenty-five  cents  to  a  dollar. 
One  dollar  was  his  limit.  He  knew  the  extent  of  his 
credit  as  well  as  the  Chemical  National  Bank  knows  the 
amount  of  H*  O  that  collateral  will  show  on  analysis. 
When  he  sat  on  my  table  he  held  one  hand  with  the  other 
to  keep  both  from  shaking.  Whiskey.  He  bud  a  spu 
rious  air  of  lightness  and  bravado  about  him  that  de 
ceived  no  one,  but  was  useful  in  his  borrowing  because 
it  was  so  pitifully  and  perceptibly  assumed. 

This  day  I  had  coaxed  from  the  cashier  five  shining 
silver  dollars  as  a  grumbling  advance  on  a  story  that 
the  Sunday  editor  had  reluctantly  accepted.  So  if  I 
was  not  feeling  at  peace  with  the  world,  at  least  an 
armistice  had  been  declared ;  and  I  was  beginning  with 
ardor  to  vrite  a  description  of  the  Brooklyn  Bridge 
by  moonlight. 

"Well,  Tripp,"  said  I,  looking  up  at  him  rather  im 
patiently,  "how  goes  it?"  He  was  looking  to-day  more 
miserable,  more  cringing  and  haggard  and  downtrodden 
than  I  had  ever  seen  him.  He  was  at  that  stage  of 
misery  where  he  drew  }rour  pity  so  fully  that  you  longed 
to  kick  him. 

"Have  you  got  a  dollar?"  asked  Tripp,  with  his  most 
fawning  look  and  his  dog-like  eyes  that  blinked  in  the 
narrow  space  between  his  high-growing  matted  beard 
and  his  low-growing  matted  hair. 

"I  have,"  said  I;  and  again  I  said,  "I  have,"  more 


No  Story  187 

loudly  and  inhospitably,  "and  four  besides.  And  I  had 
hard  work  corkscrewing  them  out  of  old  Atkinson,  I  can 
tell  you.  And  I  drew  them,"  I  continued,  "to  meet  a 
want  —  a  hiatus  —  a  demand  —  a  need  —  an  exigency 
—  a  requirement  of  exactly  five  dollars." 

I  was  driven  to  emphasis  by  the  premonition  that  I 
was  to  lose  one  of  the  dollars  on  the  spot. 

"I  don't  want  to  borrow  any,"  said  Tripp,  and  I 
breathed  again.  "I  thought  you'd  like  to  get  put  onto  a 
good  story,"  he  went  on.  "I've  got  a  rattling  fine  one 
for  you.  You  ought  to  make  it  run  a  column  at  least. 
It'll  make  a  dandy  if  you  work  it  up  right.  It'll  prob 
ably  cost  you  a  dollar  or  two  to  get  the  stuff.  I  don't 
want  anything  out  of  it  myself." 

I  became  placated.  The  proposition  showed  that 
Tripp  appreciated  past  favors,  although  he  did  not  re 
turn  them.  If  he  had  been  wise  enough  to  strike  me  for 
a  quarter  then  he  would  have  got  it. 

"What  is  the  story?"  I  asked,  poising  my  pencil  with 
a  finely  calculated  editorial  air. 

"I'll  tell  you,"  said  Tripp.  "It's  a  girl.  A  beauty. 
One  of  the  howlingest  Amsden's  Junes  you  ever  saw. 
Rosebuds  covered  with  dew  —  violets  in  their  mossy  bed 
y — and  truck  like  that.  She's  lived  on  Long  Island 
twenty  years  and  never  saw  New  York  City  before.  I 
ran  against  her  on  Thirty-fourth  Street.  She'd  just 
got  in  on  the  East  River  ferry.  I  tell  you,  she's  a  beauty 
that  would  take  the  hydrogen  out  of  all  the  peroxides 
in  the  world.  She  stopped  me  on  the  street  and  asked 


183  Options 

me  where  she  could  find  George  Brown.  Asked  me  where 
she  could  find  George  Brown  in  New  York  City!  What 
do  you  think  of  that? 

"I  talked  to  her,  and  found  that  she  was  going  to 
marry  a  young  farmer  named  Dodd  —  Hiram  Dodd  — 
next  week.  But  it  seems  that  George  Brown  still  holds 
the  championship  in  her  youthful  fancy.  George  had 
greased  his  cowhide  boots  some  years  ago,  and  came  to 
the  city  to  make  his  fortune.  But  he  forgot  to  remem 
ber  to  show  up  again  at  Greenburg,  and  Hiram  got  in 
as  second-best  choice.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  scratch 
Ada  —  her  name's  Ada  Lowery  —  saddles  a  nag  and 
rides  eight  miles  to  the  railroad  station  and  catches 
the  6 :45  A.  M.  train  for  the  city.  Looking  for  George, 
you  know  —  you  understand  about  women  —  George 
wasn't  there,  so  she  wanted  him. 

"Well,  you  know,  I  couldn't  leave  her  loose  in  Wolf- 
town-on-the-Hudson.  I  suppose  she  thought  the  first 
person  she  inquired  of  would  say:  'George  Brown?  — 
why,  yes  —  lemme  see  —  he's  a  short  man  with  light-blue 
eyx's,  ain't  he?  Oh,  yes  —  you'll  find  George  on  One 
Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  Street,  right  next  to  the 
grocery.  He's  bill-clerk  in  a  saddle-and-harness  store.' 
That's  about  how  innocent  and  beautiful  she  is.  You 
know  those  little  Long  Island  water-front  villages  like 
Greenburg  —  a  couple  of  duck-farms  for  sport,  and 
clams  and  about  nine  summer  visitors  for  industries. 
That's  the  kind  of  a  place  she  comes  from.  But,  say  — 
you  ought  to  see  her ! 


No  Story  189 

"What  could  I  do?  I  don't  know  what  money  looks 
like  in  the  morning.  And  she'd  paid  her  last  cent  of 
pocket-money  for  her  railroad  ticket  except  a  quarter, 
which  she  had  squandered  on  gum-drops.  She  was  eat 
ing  them  out  of  a  paper  bag.  I  took  her  to  a  boarding- 
house  on  Thirty-second  Street  where  I  used  to  live,  and 
hocked  her.  She's  in  soak  for  a  dollar.  That's  old 
Mother  McGinnis'  price  per  day.  I'll  show  you  the 
house. 

"What  words  are  these,  Tripp?"  said  I.  "I  thought 
you  said  you  had  a  story.  Every  ferryboat  that  crosses 
the  East  Hirer  brings  or  takes  away  girls  from  Long 
Island." 

The  premature  lines  on  Tripp's  face  grew  deeper. 
He  frowned  seriously  from  his  tangle  of  hair.  He  sepa 
rated  his  hands  and  emphasized  his  answer  with  one 
shaking  forefinger. 

"Can't  you  see,"  he  said,  "what  a  rattling  fine  story  it 
would  make?  You  could  do  it  fine.  All  about  the  ro 
mance,  you  know,  and  describe  the  girl,  and  put  a  lot  of 
stuff  in  it  about  true  love,  and  sling  in  a  few  stickfuls 
of  funny  business  —  joshing  the  Long  Islanders  about 
being  green,  and,  well  —  you  know  how  to  do  it.  You 
ought  to  get  fifteen  dollars  out  of  it,  anyhow.  And  it  11 
cost  you  only  about  four  dollars.  You'll  make  a  clear 
profit  of  eleven." 

"How  will  it  cost  me  four  dollars?"  I  asked,  suspi 
ciously. 

"One  dollar  to  Mrs.   McGinnis,"  Tripp   answered. 


190  Options 

promptly,  "and  two  dollars  to  pay  the  girl's  fare  back 
home." 

"And  the  fourth  dimension?"  I  inquired,  making  a 
rapid  mental  calculation. 

"One  dollar  to  me,"  said  Tripp,  "for  whiskey.  Are 
you  on?" 

I  smiled  enigmatically  and  spread  my  elbows  as  if  to 
begin  writing  again.  But  this  grim,  abject,  specious,  sub 
servient,  burr-like  wreck  of  a  man  would  not  be  shaken 
off.  His  forehead  suddenly  became  shiningly  moist. 

"Don't  you  see,"  he  said,  with  a  sort  of  desperate  calm 
ness,  "that  this  girl  has  got  to  be  sent  home  to-day  — 
not  to-night  nor  to-morrow,  but  to-day?  I  can't  do 
anything  for  her.  You  know,  I'm  the  janitor  and  corre 
sponding  secretary  of  the  Down-and-Out  Club.  I 
thought  you  could  make  a  newspaper  story  out  of  it  and 
win  out  a  piece  of  money  on  general  results.  But,  any 
how,  don't  you  see  that  she's  got  to  get  back  home  before 
night?" 

And  then  I  began  to  feel  that  dull,  leaden,  soul-de 
pressing  sensation  known  as  the  sense  of  duty.  Why 
should  that  sense  fall  upon  one  as  a  weight  and  a  burden? 
I  knew  that  I  was  doomed  that  day  to  give  up  the  bulk  of 
my  store  of  hard-wrung  coin  to  the  relief  of  this  Ada 
Lowery.  But  I  swore  to  myself  that  Tripp's  whiskey 
dollar  would  not  be  forthcoming.  He  might  play  knight- 
errant  at  my  expense,  but  he  would  indulge  in  no  wassail 
afterward,  commemorating  my  weakness  and  gullibility. 
In  a  kind  of  chilly  anger  I  put  on  my  coat  and  hat. 


No  Story  191 

Tripp,  submissive,  cringing,  vainly  endeavoring  to 
please,  conducted  me  via  the  street-cars  to  the  human 
pawn-shop  of  Mother  McGinnis.  I  paid  the  fares.  It 
seemed  that  the  collodion-scented  Don  Quixote  and  the 
smallest  minted  coin  were  strangers. 

Tripp  pulled  the  bell  at  the  door  of  the  mouldy  red 
brick  boarding-house.  At  its  faint  tinkle  he  paled,  and 
crouched  as  a  rabbit  makes  ready  to  spring  away  at  the 
sound  of  a  hunting-dog.  I  guessed  what  a  life  he  had 
led,  terror-haunted  by  the  coming  footsteps  of  land 
ladies. 

"Give  me  one  of  the  dollars  —  quick!"  he  said. 

The  door  opened  six  inches.  Mother  McGinnis  stood 
there  with  white  eyes  —  they  were  white,  I  say  —  and  a 
yellow  face,  holding  together  at  her  throat  with  one 
hand  a  dingy  pink  flannel  dressing-sack.  Tripp  thrust 
the  dollar  through  the  space  without  a  word,  and  it 
bought  us  entry. 

"She's  in  the  parlor,"  said  the  McGinnis,  turning  the 
back  of  her  sack  upon  us. 

In  the  dim  parlor  a  girl  sat  at  the  cracked  marble 
centre-table  weeping  comfortably  and  eating  gum-drops. 
She  was  a  flawless  beauty.  Crying  had  only  made  her 
brilliant  eyes  brighter.  When  she  crunched  a  gum-drop 
you  thought  only  of  the  poetry  of  motion  and  envied  the 
senseless  confection.  Eve  at  the  age  of  five  minutes 
must  have  been  a  ringer  for  Miss  Ada  Lowery  at  nine 
teen  or  twenty.  I  was  introduced,  and  a  gum-drop 
•suffered  neglect  while  she  conveyed  to  me  a  naive  interest, 


192  Options 

such  as  a  puppy  dog  (a  prize  winner)  might  bestow 
upon  a  crawling  beetle  or  a  frog. 

Tripp  took  his  stand  by  the  table,  with  the  fingers  of 
one  hand  spread  upon  it,  as  an  attorney  or  a  master  of 
ceremonies  might  have  stood.  But  he  looked  the  master 
of  nothing.  His  faded  coat  was  buttoned  high,  as  if  it 
sought  to  be  charitable  to  deficiencies  of  tic  and  linen.  I 
thought  of  a  Scotch  terrier  at  the  sight  of  his  shifty  eyes 
in  the  glade  between  his  tangled  hair  and  beard.  For 
one  ignoble  moment  I  felt  ashamed  of  having  been  intro 
duced  as  his  friend  in  the  presence  of  so  much  beautj7  in 
distress.  But  evidently  Tripp  meant  to  conduct  the 
ceremonies,  whatever  they  might  be.  I  thought  I  de 
tected  in  his  actions  and  pose  an  intention  of  foisting  the 
situation  upon  me  as  material  for  a  newspaper  story,  in 
a  lingering  hope  of  extracting  from  me  his  whiskey 
dollar. 

"My  friend"  (I  shuddered),  "Mr.  Chalmers,"  said 
Tripp,  "will  tell  you,  Miss  Lowery,  the  same  that  I  did. 
He's  a  reporter,  and  he  can  hand  out  the  talk  better 
than  I  can.  That's  why  I  brought  him  with  me."  (O 
Tripp,  wasn't  it  the  silver-tongued  orator  you  wanted?) 
"He's  wise  to  a  lot  of  things,  and  he'll  tell  you  now  what's 
best  to  do." 

I  stood  on  one  foot,  as  it  were,  as  I  sat  in  my  rickety 
chair. 

"Why  —  er  —  Miss  Lowery,"  I  began,  secretly  en 
raged  at  Tripp's  awkward  opening,  "I  am  at  your 
service,  of  course,  but  —  er  —  as  I  haven't  been  apprized 
of  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  I  —  er  •. " 


No  Story  103 

"Oh,"  said  Miss  Lowery,  beaming  for  a  moment,  "it 
ain't  as  bad  as  that  —  there  ain't  any  circumstances. 
It's  the  first  time  I've  ever  been  in  New  York  except  once 
when  I  was  five  years  old,  and  I  had  no  idea  it  was  such  a 
big  town.  And  I  met  Mr. —  Mr.  Snip  on  the  street  and 
asked  him  about  a  friend  of  mine,  and  he  brought  me 
here  and  asked  me  to  wait." 

"I  advise  you,  Miss  Lowery,"  said  Tripp,  **to  tell 
Mr.  Chalmers  all.  He's  a  friend  of  mine"  (I  was  get 
ting  used  to  it  by  this  time),  "and  he'll  give  you  the 
right  tip." 

"Why,  certainly,"  said  Miss  Ada,  chewing  a  gum-drop 
toward  me.  "There  ain't  anything  to  tell  except  that 
—  well,  everything's  fixed  for  me  to  marry  Hiram  Dodd 
next  Thursday  evening.  Hi  has  got  two  hundred  acres 
of  land  with  a  lot  of  shore-front,  and  one  of  the  best 
truck-farms  on  the  Island.  But  this  morning  I  had  my 
horse  saddled  up  —  he's  a  white  horse  named  Dancer — - 
and  I  rode  over  to  the  station.  I  told  'em  at  home  I  was 
going  to  spend  the  day  with  Susie  Adams.  It  was  a 
story,  I  guess,  but  I  don't  care.  And  I  came  to  New 
York  on  the  train,  and  I  met  Mr. —  Mr.  Flip  on  the  street 
and  asked  him  if  he  knew  where  I  could  find  G  —  G " 

"Now,  Miss  Lowery,"  broke  in  Tripp,  loudly,  and  with 
much  bad  taste,  I  thought,  as  she  hesitated  with  her 
word,  "you  like  this  young  man,  Hiram  Dodd,  don't 
you?  He's  all  right,  and  good  to  you,  ain't  he?" 

"Of  course  I  like  him,"  said  Miss  Lowery,  emphat 
ically.  "Hi's  all  right.  And  of  course  he'a  good  t« 
me.  So  is  everybody." 


194  Options 

I  could  have  sworn  it  myself.  Throughout  Miss  Ada 
Lowery's  life  all  men  would  be  good  to  her.  They  would 
strive,  contrive,  struggle,  and  compete  to  hold  umbrellas 
over  her  hat,  check  her  trunk,  pick  up  her  handkerchief, 
and  buy  for  her  soda  at  the  fountain. 

"But,"  went  on  Miss  Lowery,  "last  night  I  got  to 
thinking  about  G  —  George  and  I " 

Down  went  the  bright  gold  head  upon  her  dimpled, 
clasped  hands  on  the  table.  Such  a  beautiful  April 
storm !  Unrestrainedly  she  sobbed.  I  wished  I  could 
have  comforted  her.  But  I  was  not  George.  And  I 
Was  glad  I  was  not  Hiram  —  and  yet  I  was  sorry,  too. 

By-and-by  the  shower  passed.  She  straightened  up, 
brave  and  halfway  smiling.  She  would  have  made  a 
splendid  wife,  for  crying  only  made  her  eyes  more  bright 
and  tender.  She  took  a  gum-drop  and  began  her  story. 

"I  guess  I'm  a  terrible  hayseed,"  she  said,  between  her 
little  gulps  and  sighs,  "but  I  can't  help  it.  G  —  George 
Brown  and  I  were  sweethearts  since  he  was  eight  and  I 
was  five.  When  he  was  nineteen  —  that  was  four  years 
ago  —  he  left  Greenburg  and  went  to  the  city.  He  said 
he  was  going  to  be  a  policeman  or  a  railroad  president 
or  something.  And  then  he  was  coming  back  for  me. 
But  I  never  heard  from  him  any  more.  And  I  —  I- — 
liked  him." 

Another  flow  of  tears  seemed  imminent,  but  Tripp 
hurled  himself  into  the  crevasse  and  dammed  it.  Con 
found  him,  I  could  sec  his  game.  He  was  trying  to 
make  a  story  of  it  for  his  sordid  ends  and  profit. 

"Go  on,  Mr.  Chalmers,"  said  he,  "and  tell  the  lady 


Nu  Story  195 

what's  the  proper  caper.  That's  what  I  told  her  — 
you'd  hand  it  to  her  straight.  Spiel  up." 

I  coughed,  and  tried  to  feel  less  wrathful  toward 
Tripp.  I  saw  my  duty.  Cunningly  I  had  been  in 
veigled,  but  I  was  securely  trapped.  Tripp's  first  dic 
tum  to  me  had  been  just  and  correct.  The  young  lady 
must  be  sent  back  to  Greenburg  that  day.  She  must 
be  argued  wiih,  convinced,  assured,  instructed,  ticketed, 
and  returned  without  delay.  I  hated  Hiram  and  de 
spised  George  ;  but  duty  must  be  done.  Noblesse  oblige 
and  only  five  silver  dollars  are  not  strictly  romantic 
compatibles,  but  sometimes  they  can  be  made  to  jibe.  It 
was  mine  to  be  Sir  Oracle,  and  then  pay  the  freight.  So 
I  assumed  an  air  that  mingled  Solomon's  with  that  of  the 
general  passenger  agent  of  the  Long  Island  Railroad. 

"Miss  Lowery,"  said  I,  as  impressively  as  I  could, 
"life  is  rather  a  queer  proposition,  after  all."  There 
was  a  familiar  sound  to  these  words  after  I  had  spoken 
them,  and  I  hoped  Miss  Lowery  had  never  heard  Mr. 
Cohan's  song.  ''Those  whom  we  first  love  \ve  seldom  wed. 
Cur  earlier  romances,  tinged  with  the  magic  radiance  of 
youth,  often  fail  to  materialize."  The  last  three  words 
sounded  somewhat  trite  when  they  struck  the  air.  "But 
those  fondly  cherished  dreams,"  I  went  on,  "may  cast  a 
pleasant  afterglow  on  our  future  lives,  however  imprac 
ticable  and  vague  they  may  have  been.  But  life  is  full 
of  realities  as  well  as  visions  and  dreams.  One  cannot 
live  on  memories.  May  I  ask,  Miss  Lowery,  if  you 
think  you  could  pass  a  happy  —  that  is,  a  contented  and 
harmonious  life  with  Mr. —  er  —  Dodd  —  if  in  other 


196  Options 

ways  than  romantic  recollections  he  seems  to  —  er  — 
fill  the  bill,  as  I  might  say?" 

"Oh,  Hi's  all  right,"  answered  Miss  Lowery.  "Yes,  I 
could  get  along  with  him  fine.  He's  promised  me  an 
automobile  and  a  motor-boat.  But  somehow,  when  it 
got  so  close  to  the  time  I  was  to  marry  him,  I  couldn't 
help  wishing  —  well,  j  ust  thinking  about  George.  Some 
thing  must  have  happened  to  him  or  he'd  have  written. 
On  the  day  he  left,  he  and  me  got  a  hammer  and  a  chisel 
and  cut  a  dime  into  two  pieces.  I  took  one  piece  and  he 
took  the  other,  and  we  promised  to  be  true  to  each  other 
and  always  keep  the  pieces  till  we  saw  each  other  again. 
I've  got  mine  at  home  now  in  a  ring-box  in  the  top  drawer 
of  my  dresser.  I  guess  I  was  silly  to  come  up  here  look 
ing  for  him.  I  never  realized  what  a  big  place  it  is." 

And  then  Tripp  joined  in  with  a  little  grating  laugh 
that  he  had,  still  trying  to  drag  in  a  little  story  or  drama 
to  earn  the  miserable  dollar  that  he  craved. 

"Oh,  the  boys  from  the  country  forget  a  lot  when  they 
come  to  the  city  and  learn  something.  I  guess  George, 
maybe,  is  on  the  bum,  or  got  roped  in  by  some  other  girl, 
or  maybe  gone  to  the  dogs  on  account  of  whiskey  or  the 
races.  You  listen  to  Mr.  Chalmers  and  go  back  home, 
and  you'll  be  all  right." 

But  now  the  time  was  come  for  action,  for  the  hands 
of  the  clock  were  moving  close  to  noon.  Frowning  upon 
Tripp,  I  argued  gently  and  philosophically  with  Miss 
Lowery,  delicately  convincing  her  of  the  importance  of 
returning  home  at  once.  And  I  impressed  upon  her  the 
truth  that  it  would  not  be  absolutely  necessary  to  her 


Aro  Story  197 

future  happiness  that  she  mention  to  Hi  the  wonders  or 
the  fact  of  her  visit  to  the  city  that  had  swallowed  up 
the  unlucky  George. 

She  said  she  had  left  her  horse  (unfortunate  Rosin- 
ante)  tied  to  a  tree  near  the  railroad  station.  Tripp 
and  I  gave  her  instructions  to  mount  the  patient  steed 
as  soon  as  she  arrived  and  ride  home  as  fast  as  possible. 
There  she  was  to  recount  the  exciting  adventure  of  a  day 
spent  with  Susie  Adams.  She  could  "fix"  Susie  —  I 
was  sure  of  that  —  and  all  would  be  well. 

And  then,  being  susceptible  to  the  barbed  arrows  of 
beauty,  I  warmed  to  the  adventure.  The  three  of  us 
hurried  to  the  ferry,  and  there  I  found  the  price  of  a 
ticket  to  Grcenburg  to  be  but  a  dollar  and  eighty  cents. 
I  bought  one,  and  a  red,  red  rose  with  the  twenty  cents 
for  Miss  Lowcry.  We  saw  her  aboard  her  ferryboat, 
and  stood  watching  her  wave  her  handkerchief  at  us 
until  it  was  the  tiniest  white  patch  imaginable.  And 
then  Tripp  and  I  faced  each  other,  brought  back  to 
earth,  left  dry  and  desolate  in  the  shade  of  the  sombre 
verities  of  life. 

The  spell  wrought  by  beauty  and  romance  was  dwin 
dling.  I  looked  at  Tripp  and  almost  sneered.  He 
looked  more  careworn,  contemptible,  and  disreputable 
than  ever.  I  fingered  the  two  silver  dollars  remaining  in 
my  pocket  and  looked  at  him  with  the  half-closed  eyelids 
of  contempt.  He  mustered  up  an  imitation  of  resistance. 

"Can't  you  get  a  story  out  of  it?"  he  asked,  huskily. 
"Some  sort  of  a  story,  even  if  you  have  to  fake  part  of 
it?" 


198  Options 

"Not  a  line,"  said  I.  "I  can  fancy  the  look  on  Grimes' 
face  if  I  should  try  to  put  over  any  slush  like  this.  But 
we've  helped  the  little  lady  out,  and  that'll  have  to  be 
our  only  reward." 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  Tripp,  almost  inaudibly.  "I'm 
sorry  you're  out  your  money.  Now,  it  scorned  to  me 
like  a  find  of  a  big  story,  you  know  —  that  is,  a  sort  of 
thing  that  would  write  up  pretty  well." 

"Let's  try  to  forget  it,"  said  I,  with  a  praiseworthy 
attempt  at  gayety,  "and  take  the  next  car  'cross  town." 

I  steeled  myself  against  his  unexpressed  but  palpable 
desire.  He  should  not  coax,  cajole,  or  wring  from  me 
the  dollar  he  craved.  I  had  had  enough  of  that  wild- 
goose  chase. 

Tripp  feebly  unbuttoned  his  coat  of  the  faded  pattern 
and  glossy  seams  to  reach  for  something  that  had  once 
been  a  handkerchief  deep  down  in  some  obscure  and 
cavernous  pocket.  As  he  did  so  I  caught  the  shine  of  a 
cheap  silver-plated  watch-chain  across  his  vest,  and 
something  dangling  from  it  caused  me  to  stretch  forth 
my  hand  and  sei/e  it  curiously.  It  was  the  half  of  a 
silver  dime  that  had  been  cut  in  halves  with  a  chisel. 

"What"  I  said,  looking  at  him  keenly. 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  responded,  dully.  "George  Brown, 
alias  Tripp.  What's  the  use?" 

Barring  the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  I'd  like  to  know  if  anybody 
disapproves  of  my  having  produced  promptly  from  my 
pocket  Tripp's  whiskey  dollar  and  unhesitatingly  laying 
it  in  his  hand. 


THE  HIGHER  PRAGMATISM 

I 

VYHERE  to  go  for  wisdom  has  become  a  question  of 
serious  import.  The  ancients  are  discredited ;  IMato  is 
boiler-plate;  Aristotle  is  tottering;  Marcus  Aurelius  is 
reeling;  JEsop  has  been  copyrighted  by  Indiana;  Solo 
mon  is  too  solemn ;  you  couldn't  get  anything  out  of 
Epictetus  with  a  pick. 

The  ant,  which  for  many  years  served  as  a  model  of 
intelligence  and  industry  in  the  school-readers,  has  been 
proven  to  be  a  doddering  idiot  and  a  waster  of  time  and 
effort.  The  owl  to-day  is  hooted  at.  Chautauqua  con 
ventions  have  abandoned  culture  and  adopted  diabolo. 
Graybcards  give  glowing  testimonials  to  the  venders  of 
patent  hair-restorers.  There  are  typographical  errors 
in  the  almanacs  published  by  the  daily  newspapers. 
College  professors  have  become 

But  there  shall  be  no  personalities. 

To  sit  in  classes,  to  delve  into  the  encyclopedia  or  the 
past-performances  page,  will  not  make  us  wise.  As  the 
poet  says,  "Knowledge  comes,  but  wisdom  lingers." 
Wisdom  is  dew,  which,  while  we  know  it  not,  soaks  into 
us,  refreshes  us,  and  makes  us  grow.  Knowledge  is  a 
strong  stream  of  water  turned  on  us  through  a  hose.  It 

disturbs  our  roots. 

195 


200  Options 

Then,  let  us  rather  gather  wisdom.  But  how  to  do  so 
requires  knowledge.  If  we  know  a  thing,  we  know  it; 
but  very  often  we  are  not  wise  to  it  that  we  are  wise, 
and 

But  let's  go  on  with  the  story. 

II 

Once  upon  a  time  I  found  a  ten-cent  magazine  lying 
on  a  bench  in  a  little  city  park.  Anyhow,  that  was  the 
amount  he  asked  me  for  when  I  sat  on  the  bench  next  to 
him.  He  was  a  musty,  dingy,  and  tattered  magazine, 
with  some  queer  stories  bound  in  him,  I  was  sure.  He 
turned  out  to  be  a  scrap-book. 

"I  am  a  newspaper  reporter,"  I  said  to  him,  to  try 
him.  "I  have  been  detailed  to  write  up  some  of  the 
experiences  of  the  unfortunate  ones  who  spend  their 
evenings  in  this  park.  May  I  ask  you  to  what  you 
attribute  your  downfall  in " 

I  was  interrupted  by  a  laugh  from  my  purchase  —  a 
laugh  so  rusty  and  unpractised  that  I  was  sure  it  had 
been  his  first  for  many  a  day. 

"Oh,  no,  no,"  said  he.  "You  ain't  a  reporter.  Re 
porters  don't  talk  that  way.  They  pretend  to  be  one 
of  us,  and  say  they've  just  got  on  the  blind  baggage 
from  St.  Louis.  I  can  tell  a  reporter  on  sight.  Us 
park  bums  get  to  be  fine  judges  of  human  nature.  We 
sit  here  all  day  and  watch  the  people  go  by.  I  can  size 
up  anybody  who  walks  past  my  bench  in  a  way  that 
would  surprise  you." 


The  Higher  Pragmatism  201 

"Well,"  I  said,  "go  on  and  tell  me.  How  do  }rou  size 
me  up?" 

"I  should  say,"  said  the  student  of  human  nature  with 
unpardonable  hesitation,  "that  you  was,  sa}T,  in  the  con 
tracting  business  —  or  maybe  worked  in  a  store  —  or 
was  a  sign-painter.  You  stopped  in  the  park  to  finish 
your  cigar,  and  thought  you'd  get  a  little  free  monologue 
out  of  me.  Still,  you  might  be  a  plasterer  or  a  lawyer 
—  it's  getting  kind  of  dark,  you  see.  And  your  wife 
won't  let  you  smoke  at  home." 

I  frowned  gloomily. 

"But,  judging  again,"  went  on  the  reader  of  men, 
"I'd  say  you  ain't  got  a  wife." 

"No,"  said  I,  rising  restlessly.  "No,  no,  no,  I  ain't. 
But  I  •will  have,  by  the  arrows  of  Cupid.  That  is 


My  voice  must  have  trailed  away  and  muffled  itself 
in  uncertainty  and  despair. 

"I  see  you  have  a  story  yourself,"  said  the  dusty 
vagrant  —  imprudently,  it  seemed  to  me.  "Suppose  you 
take  your  dime  back  and  spin  your  yarn  for  me.  I'm 
interested  myself  in  the  ups  and  downs  of  unfortunate 
ones  who  spend  their  evenings  in  the  park." 

Somehow,  that  amused  me.  I  looked  at  the  frowsy 
derelict  with  more  interest.  I  did  have  a  story.  Why 
not  tell  it  to  him  ?  I  had  told  none  of  my  friends.  I  had 
always  been  a  reserved  and  bottled-up  man.  It  was 
psychical  timidity  or  sensitiveness  —  perhaps  both. 


202  Options 

And  I  smiled  to  myself  in  wonder  when  I  felt  an  impulse 
to  confide  in  this  stranger  and  vagabond. 

"Jack,"  said  I. 

"Mack,"  said  he. 

"Alack,"  said  I,  "I'll  tell  you." 

"Do  you  want  the  dime  back  in  advance?"  said  he. 

I  handed  him  a  dollar.  I 

"The  dime,"  said  I,  "was  the  price  of  listening  to 
your  story." 

"Right  on  the  point  of  the  jaw,"  said  he.     "Go  on." 

And  then,  incredible  as  it  may  seem  to  the  lovers  in 
the  world  who  confide  their  sorrows  only  to  the  night 
wind  and  the  gibbous  moon,  I  laid  bare  my  secret  to  that 
wreck  of  all  tilings  that  you  would  have  supposed  to  be 
in  sympathy  with  love. 

I  told  him  of  the  days  and  weeks  and  months  that  I 
had  spent  in  adoring  Mildred  Telfair.  I  spoke  of  my 
despair,  my  grievous  days  and  wakeful  nights,  my 
dwindling  hopes  and  distress  of  mind.  I  even  pictured 
to  this  night-prowler  her  beauty  and  dignity,  the  great 
sway  she  had  in  society,  and  the  magnif.cence  of  her  life 
as  the  elder  daughter  of  an  ancient  race  whose  pride 
overbalanced  the  dollars  of  the  city's  millionaires. 

"Why  don't  you  cop  the  lady  out?"  asked  Mack, 
bringing  me  down  to  earth  and  dialect  again. 

I  explained  to  him  that  my  worth  was  so  small,  my 
income  so  minute,  and  my  fears  so  large  that  I  hadn't 
the  courage  to  speak  to  her  of  my  worship.  I  told  him 
that  in  her  presence  I  could  only  blush  and  stammer,  and 


The  Higher  Pragmatism  203 

that  she  looked  upon  me  with  a  wonderful,  maddening 
smile  of  amusement. 

"She  kind  of  moves  in  the  professional  class,  don't 
she?"  asked  Mack. 

"The  Telfair  family "  I  began,  haughtily. 

"I  mean  professional  beauty,"  said  my  hearer. 

"She  is  greatly  and  widely  admired,"  I  answered, 
cautiously. 

"Any  sisters?" 

"One." 

"You  know  any  more  girls?" 

"Why,  several,"  I  answered.     "And  a  few  others." 

"Say,"  said  Mack,  "tell  me  one  thing —  can  you  liand 
out  the  dope  to  other  girls?  Can  you  chin  'em  and  make 
matinee  eyes  at  'em  and  squeeze  'em?  You  know  what 
I  mean.  You're  just  shy  when  it  comes  to  this  particu 
lar  darne —  the  professional  beauty  —  ain't  that  right?" 

"In  a  way  you  have  outlined  the  situation  with  ap 
proximate  truth,"  I  admitted. 

"I  thought  so,"  said  Mack,  grimly.  "Now,  that  re 
minds  me  of  my  own  case.  I'll  tell  you  about  it." 

I  was  indignant,  but  concealed  it.  What  was  this 
loafer's  case  or  anybody's  case  compared  with  mine? 
Besides,  I  had  given  him  a  dollar  and  ten  cents. 

"Feel  my  muscle,"  said  my  companion,  suddenly 
flexing  his  biceps.  I  did  so  mechanically.  The  fellows 
in  gyms  arc  always  asking  you  to  do  that.  His  arm  was 
as  hard  as  cast-iron. 

"Four  years  ago,"  said  Mack,  "I  could  lick  any  man 


204  Options 

in  New  York  outside  of  the  professional  ring.  Your 
case  and  mine  is  just  the  same.  I  come  from  the  West 
Side  —  between  Thirtieth  and  Fourteenth  —  and  I  won't 
give  the  number  on  the  door.  I  was  a  scrapper  when  I 
was  ten,  and  when  I  was  twenty  no  amateur  in  the  city 
could  stand  up  four  rounds  with  me.  'S  a  fact.  You 
know  Bill  McCarty?  No?  He  managed  the  smokers 
for  some  of  them  swell  clubs.  Well,  I  knocked  out  every 
thing  Bill  brought  up  before  me.  I  was  a  middle-weight, 
but  could  train  down  to  a  welter  when  necessary.  I 
boxed  all  over  the  West  Side  at  bouts  and  benefits  and 
private  entertainments,  and  was  never  put  out  once. 

"But,  say,  the  first  time  I  put  my  foot  in  the  ring  with 
a  professional  I  was  no  more  than  a  canned  lobster.  I 
dunno  how  it  was  —  I  seemed  to  lose  heart.  I  guess  I 
got  too  much  imagination.  There  was  a  formality  and 
publicness  about  it  that  kind  of  weakened  my  nerve.  I 
never  won  a  fight  in  the  ring.  Light-weights  and  all 
kinds  of  scrubs  used  to  sign  up  with  my  manager  and 
then  walk  up  and  tap  me  on  the  wrist  and  see  me  fall. 
The  minute  I  seen  the  crowd  and  a  lot  of  gents  in  evening 
clothes  down  in  front,  and  seen  a  professional  come  inside 
the  ropes,  I  got  as  weak  as  ginger-ale. 

"Of  course,  it  wasn't  long  till  I  couldn't  get  no 
backers,  and  I  didn't  have  any  more  chances  to  fight  a 
professional  —  or  many  amateurs,  either.  But  lemme 
tell  you  —  I  was  as  good  as  most  men  inside  the  ring  or 
out.  It  was  just  that  dumb,  dead  feeling  I  had  when 
I  was  up  against  a  regular  that  alwaj's  done  me  up. 


Tlie  Higher  Pragmatism  205 

"Well,  sir,  after  I  had  got  out  of  the  business,  I  got  a 
mighty  grouch  on.  I  used  to  go  round  town  licking 
private  citixcns  and  all  kinds  of  unprofessional  just  to 
please  myself.  I'd  lick  cops  in  dark  streets  and  car- 
conductors  and  cab-drivers  and  draymen  whenever  I 
could  start  a  row  with  'em.  It  didn't  make  any  differ 
ence  how  big  they  were,  or  how  much  science  they  had, 
I  got  away  with  'em.  If  I'd  only  just  have  had  the 
confidence  in  the  ring  that  I  had  beating  up  the  best 
men  outside  of  it,  I'd  be  wearing  black  pearls  and  helio 
trope  silk  socks  to-day. 

"One  evening  I  was  walking  along  near  the  Bowery, 
thinking  about  things,  when  along  comes  a  slumming- 
party.  About  six  or  seven  they  was,  all  in  swallowtails, 
and  these  silk  hats  that  don't  shine.  One  of  the  gang 
kind  of  shoves  me  off  the  sidewalk.  I  hadn't  had  a  scrap 
in  three  days,  and  I  just  says,  'De-light-ed'  and  hits 
him  back  of  the  ear. 

"Well,  we  had  it.  That  Johnnie  put  up  as  decent  a 
little  fight  as  you'd  want  to  see  in  the  moving  pictures. 
It  was  on  a  side  street,  and  no  cops  around.  The  other 
guy  had  a  lot  of  science,  but  it  only  took  me  about  six 
minutes  to  lay  him  out. 

"Some  of  the  swallowtails  dragged  him  up  against 
some  steps  and  began  to  fan  him.  Another  one  of  'em 
somes  over  to  me  and  says: 

"* Young  man,  do  you  know  what  you've  done?' 

"  'Oh,  beat  it,'  says  I.     'I've  done  nothing  but  a  little 


206  Options 

•punching-bag  work.  Take  Freddy  back  to  Yale  and 
tell  him  to  quit  studying  sociology  on  the  wrong  side 
of  the  sidewalk.' 

"  'My  good  fellow,'  says  he,  'I  don't  know  who  you  are, 
but  I'd  like  to.  You've  knocked  out  Reddy  Burns,  the 
champion  middle-weight  of  the  world !  He  came  to  New 
York  yesterday,  to  try  to  get  a  match  on  with  Jim 
Jeffries.  If  you ' 

"But  when  I  come  out  of  my  faint  I  was  laying  on  the 
floor  in  a  drug-store  saturated  with  aromatic  spirits  of 
ammonia.  If  I'd  known  that  was  Reddy  Burns,  I'd 
have  got  down  in  the  gutter  and  crawled  past  him  instead 
of  handing  him  one  like  I  did.  Why,  if  I'd  ever  been  in 
a  ring  and  seen  him  climbing  over  the  ropes,  I'd  have  been 
all  to  the  sal-volatile. 

"So  that's  what  imagination  does,"  concluded  Mack. 
"And  as  I  said,  your  case  and  mine  is  simultaneous. 
You'll  never  win  out.  You  can't  go  up  against  the 
professionals.  I  tell  you,  it's  a  park  bench  for  yours 
in  this  romance  business." 

Mack,  the  pessimist,  laughed  harshly. 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't  see  the  parallel,"  I  said,  coldly. 
"I  have  only  a  very  slight  acquaintance  with  the  prize 
ring." 

The  derelict  touched  my  sleeve  with  his  forefinger,  for 
emphasis,  as  he  explained  his  parable. 

"Every  man,"  said  he,  with  some  dignity,  "has  got 
his  lamps  on  something  that  looks  good  to  him.  With 
you,  it's  this  dame  that  you're  afraid  to  say  your  say  to. 


The  Higher  Pragmatism  207 

With  me,  it  was  to  win  out  in  the  ring.  Well,  you'll 
lose  just  like  I  did." 

"Why  do  you  think  I  shall  lose?"  I  asked  warmly. 

"  'Cause,"  said  he,  "you're  afraid  to  go  in  the  ring. 
You  dassen't  stand  up  before  a  professional.  Your  case 
and  mine  is  just  the  same.  You're  a  amateur;  and  that 
means  that  you'd  better  keep  outside  of  the  ropes." 

"Well,  I  must  be  going,"  I  said,  rising  and  looking 
with  elaborate  care  at  my  watch. 

When  I  was  twenty  feet  away  the  park-bencher  called 
to  me. 

"Much  obliged  for  the  dollar,"  he  said.  "And  for 
the  dime.  But  you'll  never  get  'er.  You're  in  the 
amateur  class." 

"Serves  you  right,"  I  said  to  myself,  "for  hobnobbing 
with  a  tramp.  His  impudence!" 

But,  as  I  walked,  his  words  seemed  to  repeat  them 
selves  over  and  over  again  in  my  brain.  I  think  I  even 
grew  angry  at  the  man. 

"I'll  show  him !"  I  finally  said,  aloud.  "I'll  show  him 
that  I  can  fight  Reddy  Burns,  too  —  even  knowing  who 
he  is." 

I  hurried  to  a  telephone-booth  and  rang  up  the  Telfair 
residence. 

A  soft,  sweet  voice  answered.  Didn't  I  know  that 
voice?  My  hand  holding  the  receiver  shook. 

"Is  that  you?"  said  I,  employing  the  foolish  words  that 
form  the  vocabulary  of  every  talker  through  the  tele 
phone. 


208  Options 

"Yes,  this  is  I,"  came  back  the  answer  in  the  low, 
clear-cut  tones  that  are  an  inheritance  of  the  Telfairs. 
"Who  is  it,  please?" 

"It's  me,"  said  I,  less  ungrammatically  than  egotisti 
cally.  "It's  me,  and  I've  got  a  few  things  that  I  want 
to  say  to  you  right  now  and  immediately  and  straight 
to  the  point." 

"Dear  me,"  said  the  voice.    "Oh,  it's  you,  Mr.  Arden  !" 

I  wondered  if  any  accent  on  the  first  word  was  in 
tended.  Mildred  was  fine  at  saying  things  that  you  h;;d 
to  study  out  afterward. 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "I  hope  so.  And  now  to  come  down  to 
brass  tacks."  I  thought  that  rather  a  vernacularism,  if 
there  is  such  a  word,  as  soon  as  I  had  said  it ;  but  I  didn't 
stop  to  apologize.  "You  know,  of  course,  that  I  love 
you,  and  that  I  have  been  in  that  idiotic  state  for  a  long 
time.  I  don't  want  any  more  foolishness  about  it  —  that 
is,  I  mean  I  want  an  answer  from  you  right  now.  Will 
you  marry  me  or  not?  Hold  the  wire,  please.  Keep 
out,  Central.  Hello,  hello!  Will  you,  or  will  you  not?" 

That  was  just  the  uppercut  for  Reddy  Burns'  chin. 
The  answer  came  back : 

"Why,  Phil,  dear,  of  course  I  will!  I  didn't  know 
that  you  —  that  is,  you  never  said  —  oh,  come  up  to  the 
house,  please  —  I  can't  say  what  I  want  to  over  the 
'phone.  You  are  so  importunate.  But  please  come  up 
to  the  house,  won't  you?* 

Would  I? 

J  rang  the  bell  of  the  Telfair  house  violently.     Some 


The  Higher  Pragmatism  209 

sort  of  a  human  came  to  the  door  and  shooed  me  into 
the  drawing-room. 

"Oh,  well,"  said  I  to  myself,  looking  at  the  ceiling, 
"any  one  can  learn  from  any  one.  That  was  a  pretty 
good  philosophy  of  Mack's,  anyhow.  He  didn't  take 
advantage  of  his  experience,  but  I  get  the  benefit  of  it. 
If  you  want  to  get  into  the  professional  class,  you've 
got  to " 

I  stopped  thinking  then.  Some  one  was  coining 
down  the  stairs.  My  knees  began  to  shake.  I  knew  then 
how  Mack  had  felt  when  a  professional  began  to  climb 
over  the  ropes.  I  looked  around  foolishly  for  a  door 
jr  a  window  by  which  I  might  escape.  If  it  had  been 
any  other  girl  approaching,  I  mightn't  have 

But  just  then  the  door  opened,  and  Bess,  Mildred's 
younger  sister,  came  in.  I'd  never  seen  her  look  so  much 
like  a  glorified  angel.  She  walked  straight  up  to  me, 
and  —  and 

I'd  never  noticed  before  what  perfectly  wonderful  eyes 
and  hair  Elizabeth  Telfair  had. 

"Phil,"  she  said,  in  the  Telfair,  sweet,  thrilling  tones, 
"why  didn't  you  tell  me  about  it,  before?  I  thought  it 
was  sister  you  wanted  all  the  time,  until  you  telephoned 
to  me  a  few  minutes  ago  !" 

I  suppose  Mack  and  I  always  will  be  hopeless  amateurs. 
But,  as  the  thing  has  turned  out  in  my  case,  I'm  mighty 
glad  of  it. 


BEST-SELLER 

I 

OXE  da}r  last  summer  I  went  to  Pittsburgh  —  well,  I 
had  to  go  there  on  business. 

My  chair-car  was  profitably  well  filled  with  people  of 
the  kind  one  usually  sees  on  chair-cars.  Most  of  them 
were  ladies  in  brown-silk  dresses  cut  with  square  yokes, 
with  lace  insertion,  and  dotted  veils,  who  refused  to  have 
the  windows  raised.  Then  there  was  the  usual  number 
of  men  who  looked  as  if  they  might  be  in  almost  any 
business  and  going  almost  anywhere.  Some  students  of 
human  nature  can  look  at  a  man  in  a  Pullman  and  tell 
you  where  he  is  from,  his  occupation  and  his  stations  in 
life,  both  flag  and  social :  but  I  never  could.  The  only 
wav  I  can  correctly  judge  a  fellow-traveller  is  when  the 
train  is  held  up  by  robbers,  or  when  he  reaches  at  the 
same  time  I  do  for  the  last  towel  in  the  dressing-room  of 
the  sleeper. 

The  porter  came  and  brushed  the  collection  of  soot  on 
the  window-sill  off  to  the  left  knee  of  my  trousers.  I 
removed  it  with  an  air  of  apology.  The  temperature 
was  eighty-eight.  One  of  the  dotted-veiled  ladies  de 
manded  the  closing  of  two  more  ventilators,  and  spoke 

loudly  of  Interlakcn.     I  leaned  back  idly  in  chair  No.  7, 

210 


Best-Setter  211 

and  looked  with  the  tcpidest  curiosity  at  the  small, 
black,  bold-spotted  head  just  visible  above  the  back  of 
No.  9. 

Suddenly  No.  9  hurled  a  book  to  the  floor  between  his 
chair  and  the  window,  and,  looking,  I  saw  that  it  was 
"The  Rose  Lady  and  Trevelyan"  one  of  the  best-selling 
novels  of  the  present  day.  And  then  the  critic  or  Philis 
tine,  whichever  he  was,  veered  his  chair  toward  the  win 
dow,  and  I  knew  him  at  once  for  John  A.  Pescud,  of 
Pittsburgh,  travelling  salesman  for  a  plate-glass  com 
pany  —  an  old  acquaintance  whom  I  had  not  seen  in  two 
years. 

In  two  minutes  we  were  faced,  had  shaken  hands,  and 
had  finished  with  such  topics  as  rain,  prosperity,  health, 
residence,  and  destination.  Politics  might  have  followed 
next ;  but  I  was  not  so  ill-fated. 

I  wish  you  might  know  John  A.  Pescud.  lie  is  of  the 
stuff  that  heroes  are  not  often  lucky  enougli  to  be  made 
of.  He  is  a  small  man  with  a  wide  smile,  and  an  eye  that 
seems  to  be  fixed  upon  that  little  red  spot  on  the  end  of 
your  nose.  I  never  saw  him  wear  but  one  kind  of  neck 
tie,  and  he  believes  in  cuff-holders  and  button-shoes.  He 
is  as  hard  and  true  as  anything  ever  turned  out  by  the 
Cambria  Steel  Works;  and  he  believes  that  as  soon  as 
Pittsburgh  makes  smoke-consumers  compulsory,  St. 
Peter  will  come  down  and  sit  at  the  foot  of  Smithficld 
Street,  and  let  somebody  else  attend  to  the  gate  up  in  the 
branch  heaven.  lie  believes  that  "our"  plate-glass  is 
the  most  important  commodity  in  the  world,  and  that 


212  Options 

when  a  man  is  in  his  home  town  he  ought  to  be  decent 
and  law-abiding. 

During  my  acquaintance  with  him  in  the  City  of 
Diurnal  Night  I  had  never  known  his  views  on  life, 
romance,  literature,  and  ethics.  We  had  browsed,  dur 
ing  our  meetings,  on  local  topics,  and  then  parted,  after 
Chateau  Margaux,  Irish  stew,  flannel-cakes,  cottage- 
pudding,  and  coffee  (hey,  there!  —  with  milk  separate). 
Now  I  was  to  get  more  of  his  ideas.  By  way  of  facts, 
he  told  me  that  business  had  picked  up  since  the  party 
conventions,  and  that  he  was  going  to  get  off  at  Coke- 
town. 

II 

"Say,"  said  Pescud,  stirring  his  discarded  book  with 
the  toe  of  his  right  shoe ;  "did  you  ever  read  one  of  these 
best-sellers?  I  mean  the  kind  where  the  hero  is  an 
American  swell  —  sometimes  even  from  Chicago  —  who 
falls  in  love  with  a  royal  princess  from  Europe  who  is 
travelling  under  an  alias,  and  follows  her  to  her  father's 
kingdom  or  principality?  I  guess  you  have.  They're 
all  alike.  Sometimes  this  going-away  masher  is  a  Wash 
ington  newspaper  correspondent,  and  sometimes  he  is  a 
Van  Something  from  New  York,  or  a  Chicago  wheat- 
broker  worth  fifty  millions.  But  he's  always  ready  to 
break  into  the  king  row  of  any  foreign  country  that 
sends  over  their  queens  and  princesses  to  try  the  new 
plush  seats  on  the  Big  Four  or  the  B.  and  O.  There 


Best-Seller  213 

doesn't  seem  to  be  any  other  reason  in  the  book  for  their 
being  here. 

"Well,  this  fellow  chases  the  royal  chair-warmer  home 
as  I  said,  and  finds  out  who  she  is.  He  meets  her  on  the 
corso  or  the  strasse  one  evening  and  gives  us  ten  pages 
of  conversation.  She  reminds  him  of  the  difference  in 
their  stations,  and  that  gives  him  a  chance  to  ring  in 
three  solid  pages  about  America's  uncrowned  sovereigns, 
If  you'd  take  his  remarks  and  set  'em  to  music,  and  then 
take  the  music  away  from  'em,  they'd  sound  exactly  like 
one  of  George  Cohan's  songs. 

"Well,  you  know  how  it  runs  on,  if  you've  read  any 
of  'em  —  he  slaps  the  king's  Swiss  bodyguards  around 
like  everything  whenever  they  get  in  his  way.  He's  a 
great  fencer,  too.  Now,  I've  known  of  some  Chicago 
men  who  were  pretty  notorious  fences,  but  I  never  heard 
of  any  fencers  coming  from  there.  He  stands  on  the 
first  landing  of  the  royal  staircase  in  Castle  Schutzen* 
festenstein  with  a  gleaming  rapier  in  his  hand,  and  makes 
a  Baltimore  broil  of  six  platoons  of  traitors  who  come 
to  massacre  the  said  king.  And  then  he  has  to  fight 
duels  with  a  couple  of  chancellors,  and  foil  a  plot  by  four 
Austrian  archdukes  to  seize  the  kingdom  for  a  gasoline- 
station. 

"But  the  great  scene  is  when  his  rival  for  the  princess* 
hand,  Count  Feodor,  attacks  him  between  the  portcullis 
and  the  ruined  chapel,  armed  with  a  mitrailleuse,  a  yata 
ghan,  and  a  couple  of  Siberian  bloodhounds.  This 


Options 

scene  is  what  runs  the  best-seller  into  the  twenty-ninth 
edition  before  tiie  publisher  has  had  time  to  draw  a  check 
for  the  advance  royalties. 

"The  American  hero  shucks  his  coat  and  throws  it 
over  the  heads  of  the  bloodhounds,  gives  the  mitrailleuse 
a  slap  with  his  mitt,  says  'Yah!'  to  the  yataghan,  and 
lands  in  Kid  McCoy's  best  style  on  the  count's  left  eye. 
Cf  course,  we  have  a  neat  little  prize-fight  right  then  and 
there.  The  count  —  in  order  to  make  the  go  possible  — • 
seems  to  be  an  expert  at  the  art  of  self-defence,  himself; 
and  here  we  have  the  Corbett-Sullivan  fight  done  over 
into  literature.  The  book  ends  with  the  broker  and  the 
princess  doing  a  John  Cecil  Clay  cover  under  the  linden- 
trees  on  the  Gorgonzola  Walk.  That  winds  up  the  love- 
story  plenty  good  enough.  But  I  notice  that  the  book 
dodges  the  final  issue.  Even  a  best-seller  has  sense 
enough  to  shy  at  cither  leaving  a  Chicago  grain-broker 
on  the  throne  of  Lobsterpotsdam  or  bringing  over  a  real 
princess  to  cat  fish  and  potato  salad  in  an  Italian  chalet 
on  Michigan  Avenue.  What  do  you  think  about  'em?" 

"Why,"  said  I,  "I  hardly  know,  John.  There's  a 
saying:  'Love  levels  all  ranks,'  you  know." 

"Yes,"  said  Pescud,  "but  these  kind  of  love-stories  are 
rank  —  on  the  level.  I  know  something  about  literature, 
even  if  I  am  in  plate-glass.  These  kind  of  books  are 
wrong,  and  yet  I  never  go  into  a  train  but  what  they  pile 
'em  up  on  me.  No  good  can  come  out  of  an  international 
clinch  between  the  Old  World  aristocracy  and  one  of  us 
fresh  Americans.  When  people  in  real  life  marry,  they 


Best-Seller  215 

generally  hunt  up  somebody  in  their  own  station.  A 
fellow  usually  picks  out  a  girl  that  went  to  the  same  high- 
school  and  belonged  to  the  same  singing-society  that  he 
did.  When  young  millionaires  fall  in  love,  they  always 
select  the  chorus-girl  that  likes  the  same  kind  of  sauce  on 
the  lobster  that  he  does.  Washington  newspaper  corre 
spondents  always  marry  widow  ladies  ten  years  older 
than  themselves  who  keep  boarding-houses.  No,  sir, 
you  can't  make  a  novel  sound  right  to  me  when  it  makes 
one  of  C.  D.  Gibson's  bright  young  men  go  abroad  and 
turn  kingdoms  upside  down  just  because  he's  a  Taft 
American  and  took  a  course  at  a  gymnasium.  And 
listen  how  they  talk,  too!" 

Pescud  picked  up  the  best-seller  and  hunted  his  page. 

"Listen  at  this,"  said  he.  "Trcvelyan  is  chinning 
with  the  Princess  Alwyna  at  the  back  end  of  the  tulip- 
garden.  This  is  how  it  goes: 

"  'Say  not  so,  dearest  and  sweetest  of  earth's  fairest  flowers. 
Would  I  aspire?  You  are  a  star  set  high  above  me  in  a  royal 
heaven;  I  am  only  —  myself.  Yet  I  am  a  man,  and  I  have  a  heart 
to  do  and  dare.  I  have  no  title  save  that  of  an  uncrowned  sover 
eign;  hut  I  have  an  arm  and  a  sword  that  yet  might  free  Schutzen- 
festenstein  from  the  plots  of  traitors.' 

"Think  of  a  Chicago  man  packing  a  sword,  and  talk 
ing  about  freeing  anything  that  sounded  as  much  like 
canned  pork  as  that !  He'd  be  much  more  likely  to  fight 
to  have  an  import  duty  put  on  it." 

"I  think  I  understand  you,  John,"  said  I.  "You 
want  fiction-writers  to  be  consistent  with  their  scenes 
and  characters.  They  shouldn't  mix  Turkish  pashas 


216  Options 

with  Vermont  larraers,  or  English  dukes  wilh  Long 
Island  clam-diggers,  or  Italian  countesses  with  Montana 
cowboys,  or  Cincinnati  brewery  agents  with  the  rajahs 
of  India." 

"Or  plain  business  men  with  aristocracy  high  above 
'em,"  added  Pescud.  "It  don't  j  ibe.  People  are  divided 
into  classes,  whether  we  admit  it  or  not,  and  it's  every 
body's  impulse  to  stick  to  their  own  class.  They  do  it, 
too.  I  don't  see  why  people  go  to  work  and  buy  hun 
dreds  of  thousands  of  books  like  that.  You  don't  ses 
or  hear  of  any  such  didoes  and  capers  in  real  life." 

Ill 

"Well,  John,"  said  I,  "I  haven't  read  a  bestseller  in 
a  long  time.  Maybe  I've  had  notions  about  them  some 
what  like  yours.  But  tell  me  more  about  yourself. 
Getting  along  all  right  with  the  company?" 

"Bully,"  said  Pescud,  brightening  at  once.  "I've  had 
my  salary  raised  twice  since  I  saw  you,  and  I  {*•'•'  :\  com 
mission,  too.  I've  bought  a  neat  slice  of  real  esl  .lc  out 
in  the  East  End,  and  have  run  up  a  house  on  it.  Next 
year  the  firm  is  going  to  sell  me  some  shares  of  stock. 
Oh,  I'm  in  on  the  line  of  General  Prosperity,  no  matter 
who's  elected !" 

"Met  your  affinity  yet,  John?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  I  didn't  tell  you  about  that,  did  I?"  said  Pescud 
with  a  broader  grin. 

"O-ho !"  I  said.  "So  you've  taken  time  enough  off 
from  your  plate-glass  to  have  a  romance?" 


Best-Seller  217 

"No,  no,"  said  John.  "No  romance  —  nothing  like 
that !  But  I'll  tell  you  about  it. 

"I  was  on  the  south-bound,  going  to  Cincinnati,  about 
eighteen  months  ago,  when  I  saw,  across  the  aisle,  the 
finest  looking  girl  I'd  ever  laid  eyes  on.  Nothing  spec 
tacular,  you  know,  but  just  the  sort  you  want  for  keeps. 
Well,  I  never  was  up  to  the  flirtation  business,  either 
handkerchief,  automobile,  postage-stamp,  or  door-step, 
and  she  wasn't  the  kind  to  start  anything.  She  read  a 
book  and  minded  her  business,  which  was  to  make  the 
world  prettier  and  better  just  by  residing  in  it.  I  kept 
on  looking  out  of  the  side  doors  of  my  eyes,  and  finally 
the  proposition  got  out  of  the  Pullman  clasiL  into  a  case 
of  a  cottage  with  a  lawn  and  vines  running  over  the 
porch.  I  never  thought  of  speaking  to  her,  but  I  let  the 
plate-glass  business  go  to  smash  for  a  while. 

"She  changed  cars  at  Cincinnati,  and  took  a  sleeper  to 
Louisville  over  the  L.  and  N.  There  she  bought  another 
ticket,  and  went  on  through  Shelbyville,  Frankford  and 
Lexington.  Along  there  I  began  to  have  a  hard  time 
keeping  up  with  her.  The  trains  came  along  when  they 
pleased,  and  didn't  seem  to  be  going  anywhere  in  particu 
lar,  except  to  keep  on  the  track  and  the  right  of  way  as 
much  as  possible.  Then  they  began  to  stop  at  j  unctions 
instead  of  towns,  and  at  last  they  stopped  altogether. 
I'll  bet  Pinkerton  would  outbid  the  plate-glass  people  for 
my  services  any  time  if  they  knew  how  I  managed  to 
shadow  that  young  lady.  I  contrived  to  keep  out  of  her 
sight  as  much  as  I  could,  but  I  never  lost  track  of  her. 


218  Options 

"The  last  station  she  got  off  at  was  away  down  in 
Virginia,  about  six  in  the  afternoon.  There  were  about 
fifty  houses  and  four  hundred  niggers  in  sight.  The  rest 
was  red  mud,  mules,  and  speckled  hounds. 

"A  tall  old  man,  with  a  smootii  face  and  white  hair, 
looking  as  proud  as  Julius  Cssar  and  Roscoe  Conkling  on 
the  saint  post-card,  was  there  to  meet  her.  His  clothes 
were  frazzled,  but  I  didn't  notice  that  till  later.  He  took 
her  little  satchel,  and  they  started  over  the  plank  walks 
and  went  up  a  road  along  the  hill.  I  kept  along  a  piece 
behind  'em,  trying  to  look  like  I  was  hunting  a  garnet 
ring  in  the  sand  that  my  sister  had  lost  at  a  picnic  the 
previous  Saturday. 

"They  went  in  a  gate  on  top  of  the  hill.  It  nearly  took 
my  breath  away  when  I  looked  up.  Up  there  in  the 
biggest  grove  I  ever  saw  was  a  tremendous  house  with 
round  white  pillars  about  a  thousand  feet  high,  and  the 
yard  was  so  full  of  rose-bushes  and  box-bushes  and  lilacs 
that  you  couldn't  have  seen  the  house  if  it  hadn't  been  as 
big  as  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 

"'Here's  where  I  have  to  trail,'  says  I  to  myself.  I 
thought  before  that  she  seemed  to  be  in  moderate  circum 
stances,  at  least.  This  must  be  the  Governor's  mansion, 
or  the  Agricultural  Building  of  a  new  World's  Fair,  any- 
ho\v.  I'd  better  go  back  to  the  village  and  get  posted  by 
the  postmaster,  or  drug  the  druggist  for  sonic  informa 
tion. 

"In  the  village  I  found  a  pine  hotel  called  the  Bay  View 
House.  The  only  excuse  for  the  name  was  a  bay  horse 


Best-Seller  219 

grazing  in  the  front  yard.  I  set  my  sample-cose  down, 
and  tried  to  be  ostensible.  I  told  the  landlord  I  was 
taking  orders  for  plate-glass. 

"'I  don't  want  no  plates,'  says  he,  'but  I  do  need 
another  glass  molasses-pitcher.' 

"By-and-by  I  got  him  down  to  local  gossip  and  an 
swering  questions. 

"'Why,'  gays  he,  'I  thought  everybody  knowed  who 
lived  in  the  big  white  house  on  the  hill.  It's  Colonel 
Allyn,  the  biggest  man  and  the  finest  quality  in  Virginia, 
or  anywhere  else.  They're  the  oldest  family  in  the  State. 
That  was  his  daughter  that  got  off  the  train.  She's 
been  up  to  Illinois  to  see  her  aunt,  who  is  sick.* 

"I  registered  at  the  hotel,  and  on  the  third  day  I 
caught  the  young  lady  walking  in  the  front  j'ard,  down 
next  to  the  paling  fence.  I  stopped  and  raised  my  hat 
—  there  wasn't  any  other  way. 

"'Excuse  me,'  says  I,  'can  you  tell  me  where  Mr. 
Hinkle  lives?' 

"She  looks  at  me  as  cool  as  if  I  was  the  man  come  to  see 
about  the  weeding  of  the  garden,  but  I  thought  I  saw  just 
a  slight  twinkle  of  fun  in  her  eye*. 

"'No  one  of  that  name  lives  in  Birchton,'  says  she. 
'That  is,'  she  goes  on,  'as  far  as  I  know.  Is  the  gentle 
man  you  are  seeking  white?' 

"Well,  that  tickled  me.  'No  kidding,'  gAys  I.  'I'm 
not  looking  for  smoke,  even  if  I  do  eotne  front  Pitts 
burgh,' 

"  'You  are  quite  a  distance  from  home,'  says  she. 


220  Options 

"  'I'd  have  gone  a  thousand  miles  farther,'  says  I. 

"'Not  if  you  hadn't  waked  up  when  the  train 
started  in  Shelbyville,'  says  she;  and  then  she  turned 
almost  as  red  as  one  of  the  roses  on  the  bushes  in 
the  yard.  I  remembered  I  had  dropped  off  to  sleep 
on  a  bench  in  the  ShelbyviUe  station,  waiting  to  see 
which  train  she  took  and  only  just  managed  to  wake  up 
in  time. 

"And  then  I  told  her  why  I  had  come,  as  respectful 
and  earnest  as  I  could.  And  I  told  her  everything  about 
myself,  and  what  I  was  making,  and  how  that  all  I  asked 
was  just  to  get  acquainted  with  her  and  try  to  get  her 
to  like  me. 

"She  smiles  a  little,  and  blushes  some,  but  her  eyes 
never  get  mixed  up.  They  look  straight  at  whatever 
she's  talking  to. 

"  'I  never  had  any  one  talk  like  this  to  me  before,  Mr. 
Pescud,'  says  she.  'What  did  you  say  your  name  is 
—  John?' 

"  'John  A.,'  says  I. 

"'And  you  came  mighty  near  missing  the  train  at 
Powhatan  Junction,  too,'  says  she,  with  a  laugh  that 
sounded  as  good  as  a  mileage-book  to  me. 

"'How  did  you  know?'  I  asked. 

"  'Men  are  very  clumsy,'  said  she.  'I  knew  you  were 
on  every  train.  I  thought  you  were  going  to  speak  to 
me,  and  I'm  glad  you  didn't.' 

"Then  we  had  more  talk ;  and  at  last  a  kind  of  proud, 


Best-Seller  221 

serious  look  came  on  her  face,  and  she  turned  and  pointed 
a  finger  at  the  big  house. 

"  'The  Allyns,'  says  she,  'have  lived  in  Elmcroft  for  a 
hundred  years.  We  are  a  proud  family.  Look  at  that 
mansion.  It  has  fifty  rooms.  See  the  pillars  and  porches 
and  balconies.  The  ceilings  in  the  reception-rooms  and 
the  ballroom  are  twenty-eight  feet  high.  My  father  is 
a  lineal  descendant  of  belted  earls.' 

"  'I  belted  one  of  'em  once  in  the  Duquesne  Hotel,  in 
Pittsburgh,'  says  I,  'and  he  didn't  offer  to  resent  it.  He 
was  there  dividing  his  attentions  between  Monongahela 
whiskey  and  heiresses,  and  he  got  fresh.' 

"  'Of  course,'  she  goes  on,  'my  father  wouldn't  allow  a 
drummer  to  set  his  foot  in  Elmcroft.  If  he  knew  that 
I  was  talking  to  one  over  the  fence  he  would  lock  me  in 
my  room.' 

"  'Would  you  let  me  come  there?'  says  I.  'Would  yo\ 
talk  to  me  if  I  was  to  call?  For,'  I  goes  on,  'if  you  said 
I  might  come  and  see  you,  the  earls  might  be  belted  or 
suspendered,  or  pinned  up  with  safety-pins,  as  far  as 
I  am  concerned.' 

"  'I  must  not  talk  to  you,'  she  says,  'because  we  have 
not  been  introduced.  It  is  not  exactly  proper.  So  I 
will  say  good-bye,  Mr. ' 

"  'Say  the  name,'  says  I.     'You  haven't  forgotten  it.' 

"  'Pescud,'  says  she,  a  little  mad. 

"  'The  rest  of  the  name !'  I  demands,  cool  as  could  be. 

"  'John,'  says  she. 


222  Options 

"'John  — what?'  I  says. 

"'John  A.,'  says  she,  with  her  head  high.  'Are  you 
through,  now?' 

"  Tin  coming  to  see  the  belted  earl  to-morrow,'  I  says. 

"  'He'll  feed  you  to  his  fox-hounds,'  says  she,  laughing. 

'"If  he  does,  it'll  improve  their  running,'  says  I. 
'I'm  something  of  a  hunter  myself.' 

"  'I  must  be  going  in  now,'  says  she.  'I  oughtn't  to 
have  spoken  to  you  at  all.  I  hope  you'll  have  a  pleasant 
trip  back  to  Minneapolis  —  or  Pittsburgh,  was  it? 
Good-bye? 

"  'Good-night,'  says  I,  'and  it  wasn't  Minneapolis. 
V,  Iiat's  your  name,  first,  please?' 

"She  hesitated.  Then  she  pulled  a  leaf  off  a  bush, 
and  said : 

"'My  name  is  Jessie,'  says  she. 

"'Good-night,  Miss  Allyn,'  says  I. 

"The  next  morning  at  eleven,  sharp,  I  rang  the  door 
bell  of  that  World's  Fair  main  building.  After  about 
three  quarters  of  an  hour  an  old  nigger  man  about  eighty 
showed  up  and  asked  what  I  wanted.  I  gave  him  my 
business  card,  and  said  I  wanted  to  see  the  colonel.  He 
showed  me  in. 

"Say,  did  you  ever  crack  open  a  wormy  English  wal 
nut?  That's  what  that  house  was  like.  There  wasn't 
enough  furniture  in  it  to  fill  an  eight-dollar  flat.  Some 
old  horsehair  lounges  and  three-legged  chairs  and  some 
framed  ancestors  on  the  walls  were  all  that  met  the  eye. 
But  when  Colonel  Allyn  comes  in,  the  place  seemed  to 


Best-Seller  223 

light  up.  You  could  almost  hear  a  band  playing,  and 
see  a  bunch  of  old-timers  in  wigs  and  white  stockings 
dancing  a  quadrille.  It  was  the  style  of  him,  although 
he  had  on  the  same  shabby  clothes  I  saw  him  wear  at  the 
station. 

"For  about  nine  seconds  he  had  me  rattled,  and  I  came 
mighty  near  getting  cold  feet  and  trying  to  sell  him  some 
plate-glass.  But  I  got  my  nerve  back  pretty  quick.  He 
asked  me  to  sit  down,  and  I  told  him  everything.  I  told 
him  how  I  followed  his  daughter  from  Cincinnati,  and 
what  I  did  it  for,  and  all  about  my  salary  and  prospects, 
and  explained  to  him  my  little  code  of  living  —  to  be 
always  decent  and  right  in  your  home  town ;  and  when 
you're  on  the  road  never  take  more  than  four  glasses  of 
beer  a  day  or  play  higher  than  a  twentj^-five  cent  limit. 
At  first  I  thought  he  was  going  to  throw  me  out  of  the 
window,  but  I  kept  on  talking.  Prett}'  soon  I  got  a 
chance  to  tell  him  that  story  about  the  Western  Con 
gressman  who  had  lost  his  pocketbook  and  the  grass 
widow  —  you  remember  that  story.  Well,  that  got  him 
to  laughing,  and  I'll  bet  that  was  the  first  laugh  those 
ancestors  and  horsehair  sofas  had  heard  in  man}"  a  day. 

"We  talked  two  hours.  I  told  him  everything  I  knew ; 
and  then  he  began  to  ask  questions,  and  I  told  him  tlie 
rest.  All  I  asked  of  him  was  to  give  me  a  chance.  If  I 
couldn't  make  a  hit  with  the  little  ladjr,  I'd  clear  out, 
and  not  bother  any  more.  At  last  he  says : 

"'There  was  a  Sir  Courtcnay  Pescud  in  the  time  of 
Charles  I,  if  I  remember  rightly.' 


224  Options 

"'If  there  was,'  says  I,  'he  can't  claim  kin  with  OUT, 
bunch.  We've  always  lived  in  and  around  Pittsburgh. 
I've  got  an  uncle  in  the  real-estate  business,  and  one  in, 
trouble  somewhere  out  in  Kansas.  You  can  inquire 
about  any  of  the  rest  of  us  from  anybody  in  old  Smoky 
Town,  and  get  satisfactory  replies.  Did  you  ever  run 
across  that  story  about  the  captain  of  the  whaler  who 
tried  to  make  a  sailor  say  his  prayers?'  says  I. 

"  'It  occurs  to  me  that  I  have  never  been  so  fortunate," 
says  the  colonel. 

"So  I  told  it  to  him.  Laugh !  I  was  wishing  to  my 
self  that  he  was  a  customer.  What  a  bill  of  a  glass  I'd 
sell  him !  And  then  he  says : 

'"The  relating  of  anecdotes  and  humorous  occur 
rences  has  always  seemed  to  me,  Mr.  Pescud,  to  be  a  par 
ticularly  agreeable  way  of  promoting  and  perpetuating 
amenities  between  friends.  With  your  permission,  I  will 
relate  to  you  a  fox-hunting  story  with  which  I  was  per 
sonally  connected,  and  which  may  furnish  you  some 
amusement.' 

"So  he  tells  it.  It  takes  forty  minutes  by  the  watch. 
Did  I  laugh?  Well,  say  I  When  I  got  my  face  straight 
he  calls  in  old  Pete,  the  superannuated  darky,  and  sends 
him  down  to  the  hotel  to  bring  up  my  valise.  It  was 
Elmcroft  for  me  while  I  was  in  the  town. 

"Two  evenings  later  I  got  a  chance  to  speak  a  word 
with  Miss  Jessie  alone  on  the  porch  while  the  colonel  was 
thinking  up  another  story. 

"  'It's  going  to  be  a  fine  evening,'  says  I. 


Best-Seller  225 

"  'He's  coming,'  says  she.  'He's  going  to  tell  you,  this 
time,  the  story  about  the  old  negro  and  the  green  water 
melons.  It  always  comes  after  the  one  about  the  Yan 
kees  and  the  game  rooster.  There  was  another  time,'  she 
goes  on  'that  you  nearly  got  left  —  it  was  at  Pulaski 
City.' 

"  'Yes,'  says  I,  'I  remember.  My  foot  slipped  as  I  was 
jumping  on  the  step,  and  I  nearly  tumbled  off.' 

"'I  know,'  says  she.  'And  —  and  I  —  /  was  afraid 
you  had,  John  A.  I  was  afraid  you  had.' 

"And  then  she  skips  into  the  house  through  one  of  the 
biff  windows." 


"Coketown  1"  (Ironed  the  porter,  making  his  way 
througli  the  slowing  car. 

Pescud  gathered  his  hat  and  baggage  with  the  leisurely 
promptness  of  an  old  traveller. 

"I  married  her  a  year  ago,"  said  John.  "I  told  you  I 
built  a  house  in  the  East  End.  The  belted  —  I  mean  the 
colonel  —  is  there,  too.  I  find  him  waiting  at  the  gate 
whenever  I  get  back  from  a  trip  to  hear  any  new  story 
I  might  have  picked  up  on  the  road." 

I  glanced  out  of  the  window.  Coketown  was  nothing 
more  than  a  ragged  hillside  dotted  with  a  score  of  black 
tlismal  huts  propped  up  against  dreary  mounds  of  slag 
and  clinkers.  It  rained  in  slanting  torrents,  too,  and  the 
Tills  foamed  and  splashed  down  through  the  black  mud  to 
$he  railroad-tracks. 


226  Options 

"You  won't  sell  much  plate-glass  here,  John,"  said  I. 
"Why  do  you  get  off  at  this  end-o'-the-world  ?" 

"Why,"  said  Pescud,  "the  other  day  I  took  Jessie  for 
a  little  trip  to  Philadelphia,  and  coming  back  she  thought 
she  saw  some  petunias  in  a  pot  in  one  of  those  windows 
over  there  just  like  some  she  used  to  raise  down  in  the  old 
Virginia  home.  So  I  thought  I'd  drop  off  here  for  the 
night,  and  see  if  I  could  dig  up  some  of  the  cuttings  or 
blossoms  for  her.  Here  we  are.  Good-night,  old  man. 
I  gave  you  the  address.  Come  out  and  see  us  when  you 
have  time." 

The  train  moved  forward.  One  of  the  dotted  brown 
ladies  insisted  on  having  windows  raised,  now  that  the 
rain  beat  against  them.  The  porter  came  along  with 
his  mysterious  wand  and  began  to  light  the  car. 

I  glanced  downward  and  saw  the  best-seller.  I  picked 
it  up  and  set  it  carefully  farther  along  on  the  floor  of  the 
cc.r,  where  the  raindrops  would  not  fall  upon  it.  And 
then,  suddenly,  I  smiled,  and  seemed  to  see  that  life  has 
no  geographical  metes  and  bounds. 

"Good-luck  to  you,  Trevelyan,"  I  said.  "And  may 
you  get  the  petunias  for  your  princess !" 


RUS  IN  URBE 

C/ONSIDERING  men  in  relation  to  money,  there  are 
three  kinds  whom  I  dislike:  men  who  have  more  money 
than  they  can  gpend;  men  who  have  more  money  than 
they  do  spend ;  and  men  who  spend  more  money  than 
they  have.  Of  the  three  varieties,  I  believe  I  have  the 
least  liking  for  the  first.  But,  as  a  man,  I  liked  Spencer 
Grenvillc  North  pretty  well,  although  he  had  something 
like  two  or  ten  or  thirty  millions  —  I've  forgotten  ex 
actly  how  many. 

I  did  not  leave  town  that  summer.  I  usually  went 
down  to  a  village  on  the  south  shore  of  Long  Island.  The 
place  was  surrounded  by  duck-farms,  and  the  ducks  and 
dogs  and  whip-poor-wills  and  rusty  windmills  made  so 
much  noise  that  I  could  sleep  as  peacefully  as  if  I  were  in 
my  own  flat  six  doors  from  the  elevated  railroad  in  New 
York.  But  that  summer  I  did  not  go.  Remember  that. 
One  of  my  friends  askod  me  why  I  did  not.  I  replied : 
"Because,  old  man,  New  York  is  the  finest  summer  resort 
in  the  world."  You  have  heard  that  phrase  before. 
But  that  is  what  I  told  him. 

I  was  press-agent  that  year  for  Binkley  &  Bing,  the 
theatrical  managers  and  producers.  Of  course  }Tou  know 
•what  a  press-agent  is.  Well,  he  is  not.  That  is  the  se 
cret  of  being  one. 


228  Options 

Binklej  was  touring  France  in  his  new  C.  &  N.  Wil 
liamson  car,  and  Bing  had  gone  to  Scotland  to  learn 
curling,  which  he  seemed  to  associate  in  his  mind  with  hot 
tongs  rather  than  with  ice.  Before  they  left  they  gave 
me  June  and  July,  on  salary,  for  my  vacation,  which  act 
was  in  accord  with  their  large  spirit  of  liberality.  But 
I  remained  in  New  York,  which  I  had  decided  was  the 
finest  summer  resort  in 

But  I  said  that  before. 

On  July  the  10th,  North  came  to  town  from  his  camp 
in  the  Adirondacks.  Try  to  imagine  a  camp  with  sixteen 
rooms,  plumbing,  eiderdown  quilts,  a  butler,  a  garage, 
solid  silver  plate,  and  a  long-distance  telephone.  Of 
course  it  was  in  the  woods  —  if  Mr.  Pinchot  wants  to  pre 
serve  the  forests  let  him  give  every  citizen  two  or  ten  or 
thirty  million  dollars,  and  the  trees  will  all  gather  around 
the  summer  camps,  as  the  Birnam  woods  came  to  Dun- 
sinane,  and  be  preserved. 

North  came  to  see  me  in  my  three  rooms  and  bath, 
extra  charge  for  light  when  used  extravagantly  or  all 
night.  He  slapped  me  on  the  back  (I  would  rather  have 
my  shins  kicked  any  day),  and  greeted  me  with  outdoor 
obstreperousness  and  revolting  good  spirits.  He  was 
insolently  brown  and  healthy-looking,  and  offensively 
well  dressed. 

"Just  ran  down  for  a  few  days,"  said  he,  "to  sign  some 
papers  and  stuff  like  that.  My  lawyer  wired  me  to  come. 
Well,  you  indolent  cockney,  what  are  you  doing  in  town  f. 
I  took  a  chance  and  telephoned,  and  they  said  you  were 


Rus  in  Urbe  229 

here.  What's  the  matter  with  that  Utopia  on  Long 
Island  where  you  used  to  take  your  typewriter  and  your 
villainous  temper  every  summer?  Anything  wrong  with 
the  —  er  —  swans,  weren't  they,  that  used  to  sing  on  the 
farms  at  night?" 

"Ducks,"  said  I.  "The  songs  of  swans  are  for  luckier 
ears.  They  swim  and  curve  their  necks  in  artificial  lakes 
on  the  estates  of  the  wealthy  to  delight  the  eyes  of  the 
favorites  of  Fortune." 

"Also  in  Central  Park,"  said  North,  "to  delight  the 
eyes  of  immigrants  and  bummers.  I've  seen  'em  there 
lots  of  times.  But  why  are  you  in  the  city  so  late  in  the 
summer?" 

"New  York  City,"  I  began  to  recite,  "is  the  finest 
sum " 

"No,  you  don't,"  said  North,  emphatically.  "You 
don't  spring  that  old  one  on  me.  I  know  you  know 
better.  Man,  you  ought  to  have  gone  up  with  us  this 
summer.  The  Prestons  are  there,  and  Tom  Volney  and 
the  Monroes  and  Lulu  Stanford  and  the  Miss  Kennedy 
and  her  aunt  that  you  liked  so  well." 

"I  never  liked  Miss  Kennedy's  aunt,"  I  said. 

"I  didn't  say  you  did,"  said  North.  "We  are  having 
the  greatest  time  we've  ever  had.  The  pickerel  and  trout 
are  so  ravenous  that  I  believe  they  would  swallow  your 
hook  with  a  Montana  copper-mine  prospectus  fastened 
on  it.  And  we've  a  couple  of  electric  launches ;  and  I'll 
tell  you  what  we  do  every  night  or  two  —  we  tow  a  row- 
boat  behind  each  one  with  a  big  phonograph  and  a  boy  to 


230  Options 

change  the  discs  in  'em.  On  the  water,  and  twenty  yards 
behind  you,  they  are  not  so  bad.  And  there  are  passably 
good  roads  through  the  woods  where  we  go  motoring.  I 
shipped  two  cars  up  there.  And  the  Pinecliff  Inn  is 
only  three  miles  away.  You  know  the  Pinecliff.  Some 
good  people  are  there  this  season,  and  we  run  over  to  the 
dances  twice  a  week.  Can't  you  go  back  with  me  for  a 
week,  old  man?" 

I  laughed.  "Northy,"  said  I — "if  I  may  be  so  fa 
miliar  with  a  millionaire,  because  I  hate  both  the  names 
Spencer  and  Grenville  —  your  invitation  is  meant  kindly, 
but  —  the  city  in  the  summer-time  for  me.  Here,  while 
the  bourgeoisie  is  away,  I  can  live  as  Nero  lived  —  bar 
ring,  thank  Heaven,  the  fiddling  —  while  the  city  burns 
at  ninety  in  the  shade.  The  tropics  and  the  zones  wait 
upon  me  like  handmaidens.  I  sit  under  Florida  palms 
and  eat  pomegranates  while  Boreas  himself,  electrically 
conjured  up,  blows  upon  me  his  Arctic  breath.  As  for 
trout,  you  know,  yourself,  that  Jean,  at  Maurice's,  cooks 
them  better  than  any  one  else  in  the  world.*' 

"Be  advised,"  said  North.  "My  chef  has  pinched 
the  blue  ribbon  from  the  lot.  He  lays  some  slices  of 
bacon  inside  the  trout,  wraps  it  all  in  corn-husks  —  the 
husks  of  green  corn,  you  know  —  buries  them  in  hot 
ashes  and  covers  them  with  live  coals.  We  build  fires 
on  the  bank  of  the  lake  and  have  fish  suppers." 

"I  know,"  said  I.  "And  the  servants  bring  down 
tables  and  chairs  and  damask  cloths,  and  you  eat  with 
silver  forks.  I  know  the  kind  of  camps  that  you  million* 


Bus  in  Urbe  231 

aires  have.  And  there  arc  champagne  pails  set  about, 
disgracing  the  wild  flowers,  and,  no  doubt,  Madame 
Tetrazzini  to  sing  in  the  boat  pavilion  after  the  trout." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  North,  concernedly,  "we  were  never  as 
bad  as  that.  We  did  have  a  variety  troupe  up  from  the 
city  three  or  four  nights,  but  they  weren't  stars  by  as 
far  as  light  can  travel  in  the  same  length  of  time.  I 
always  like  a  few  home  comforts  even  when  I'm  roughing 
it.  But  don't  tell  me  you  prefer  to  stay  in  the  city  dur 
ing  summer.  I  don't  believe  it.  If  you  do,  why  did  you 
spend  your  summers  there  for  the  last  four  years,  even 
sneaking  away  from  town  on  a  night  train,  and  refusing 
to  tell  your  friends  where  this  Arcadian  village  was  ?" 

"Because,"  said  I,  "they  might  have  followed  me  and 
discovered  it.  But  since  then  I  have  learned  that 
Amaryllis  has  come  to  town.  The  coolest  things,  the 
freshest,  the  brightest,  the  choicest,  are  to  be  found  in  the 
city.  If  you've  nothing  on  hand  this  evening  I  will 
show  you." 

"I'm  free,"  said  North,  "and  I  have  my  light  car  out 
side.  I  suppose,  since  you've  been  converted  to  the 
town,  that  your  idea  of  rural  sport  is  to  have  a  little 
whirl  between  bicycle  cops  in  Central  Park  and  then 
a  mug  of  sticky  ale  in  some  stuffy  rathskeller  under 
a  fan  that  can't  stir  up  as  many  revolutions  in  a  week  as 
Nicaragua  can  in  a  day." 

"We'll  begin  with  the  spin  through  the  Park,  anyhow," 
I  said.  I  was  choking  with  the  hot,  stale  air  of  my  little 
apartment,  and  I  wanted  that  breath  of  the  cool  to  brace 


232  Options 

me  for  the  task  of  proving  to  my  friend  that  New  York 
was  the  greatest  —  and  so  forth. 

"Where  can  you  find  air  any  fresher  or  purer  than 
this?"  I  asked,  as  we  sped  into  Central's  boskiest  dell. 

"Air !"  said  North,  contemptuously.  "Do  you  call 
this  air?  —  this  muggy  vapor,  smelling  of  garbage  and 
gasoline  smoke.  Man,  I  wish  you  could  get  one  sniff  of 
the  real  Adirondack  article  in  the  pine  woods  at  day 
light." 

"I  have  heard  of  it,"  said  I.  "But  for  fragrance  and 
tang  and  a  joy  in  the  nostrils  I  would  not  give  one  puff 
of  sea  breeze  across  the  bay,  down  on  my  little  boat 
dock  on  Long  Island,  for  ten  of  your  turpentine-scented 
tornadoes." 

"Then  why,"  asked  North,  a  little  curiously,  "don't 
you  go  there  instead  of  staying  cooped  up  in  this  Greater 
Bakery?" 

"Because,"  said  I,  doggedly,  "I  have  discovered  that 
New  York  is  the  greatest  summer " 

"Don't  say  that  again,"  interrupted  North,  "unless 
you've  actually  got  a  job  as  General  Passenger  Agent  of 
the  Subway.  You  can't  really  believe  it." 

I  went  to  some  trouble  to  try  to  prove  my  theory  to 
my  friend.  The  Weather  Bureau  and  the  season  had 
conspired  to  make  the  argument  worthy  of  an  able  advo 
cate. 

The  city  seemed  stretched  on  a  broiler  directly  above 
the  furnaces  of  Avernus.  There  was  a  kind  of  tepid 
gayety  afoot  and  awheel  in  the  boulevards,  mainly 


Rus  in  Urbe  233 

evinced  by  languid  men  strolling  about  in  straw  hats  and 
evening  clothes,  and  rows  of  idle  taxicabs  with  their  flags 
up,  looking  like  a  blockaded  Fourth  of  July  procession. 
The  hotels  kept  up  a  specious  brilliancy  and  hospitable 
outlook,  but  inside  one  saw  vast  empty  caverns,  and  the 
footrails  at  the  bars  gleamed  brightly  from  long  dis- 
acquaintancc  with  the  sole-leather  of  customers.  In  the 
cross-town  streets  the  steps  of  the  old  brownstone  houses 
were  swarming  with  "stoopers,"  that  motley  race  hailing 
from  skylight  room  and  basement,  bringing  out  their 
straw  door-step  mats  to  sit  and  fill  the  air  with  strange 
noises  and  opinions. 

North  and  I  dined  on  the  top  of  a  hotel ;  and  here,  for 
a  few  minutes,  I  thought  I  had  made  a  score.  An  east 
wind,  almost  cool,  blew  across  the  roofless  roof.  A  capa 
ble  orchestra  concealed  in  a  bower  of  wistaria  played 
with  sufficient  judgment  to  make  the  art  of  music  prob 
able  and  the  art  of  conversation  possible. 

Some  ladies  in  reproachless  summer  gowns  at  other 
tables  gave  animation  and  color  to  the  scene.  And  an 
excellent  dinner,  mainly  from  the  refrigerator,  seemed  to 
successfully  back  my  judgment  as  to  summer  resorts. 
But  North  grumbled  all  during  the  meal,  and  cursed  his 
lawyers  and  prated  so  of  his  confounded  camp  in  the 
woods  that  I  began  to  wish  he  would  go  back  there  and 
leave  me  in  my  peaceful  city  retreat. 

After  dining  we  went  to  a  roof-garden  vaudeville  that 
was  being  much  praised.  There  we  found  a  good  bill, 
an  artificially  cooled  atmosphere,  cold  drinks,  prompt 


234  Options 

service,  and  a  gay,  well-dressed  audience.  North  was 
bored. 

"If  this  isn't  comfortable  enough  for  you  on  the  hot 
test  August  night  for  five  years,"  I  said,  a  little  sar 
castically,  "you  might  think  about  the  kids  down  in  De- 
lancey  and  Hester  streets  lying  out  on  the  fire-escapes 
with  their  tongues  hanging  out,  trying  to  get  a  breath  of 
air  that  hasn't  been  fried  on  both  sides.  The  contrast 
might  increase  your  enjoyment." 

"Don't  talk  Socialism,"  said  North.  *'I  gave  five 
hundred  dollars  to  the  free  ice  fund  on  the  first  of  May. 
I'm  contrasting  these  stale,  artificial,  hollow,  wearisome 
'amusements'  with  the  enjoyment  a  man  can  get  in  the 
woods.  You  should  see  the  firs  and  pines  do  skirt- 
dances  during  a  storm ;  and  lie  down  flat  and  drink  out  of 
a  mountain  branch  at  the  end  of  a  day's  tramp  after  the 
deer.  That's  the  only  way  to  spend  a  summer.  Get  out 
and  live  with  Nature." 

"I  agree  with  you  absolutely,"  said  I,  with  emphasis. 

For  one  moment  I  had  relaxed  my  vigilance,  and  had 
spoken  my  true  sentiments.  North  looked  at  me  long 
and  curiously. 

"Then  why,  in  the  name  of  Pan  and  Apollo,"  he  asked, 
"have  you  been  singing  this  deceitful  psean  to  summer 
itt  town?" 

I  suppose  I  looked  iny  gsilt. 

"Ha,"  said  North,  "I  sec.     May  I  ask  her  name?" 

"Annie  Ashton,"  said  I,  simply.     "She  played  Nan- 


Rus  in  Urbe  235 

nette  in  Binkley  &  Sing's  production  of  The  Silver 
Cord.'  She  is  to  have  a  better  part  next  seaaon." 

"Take  me  to  see  her,"  said  North. 

Miss  Ashton  lived  with  her  mother  in  a  small  hotel. 
They  were  out  of  the  West,  and  had  a  little  money  that 
bridged  the  seasons.  As  press-agent  of  Binkley  &  Bing 
I  had  tried  to  keep  her  before  the  public.  As  Robert 
James  Vandiver,  I  had  hoped  to  withdraw  her ;  for  if  ever 
one  was  made  to  keep  company  with  said  Vandiver  and 
smell  the  salt  breeze  on  the  south  shore  of  Long  Island 
and  listen  to  the  ducks  quack  in  the  watches  of  the  night, 
it  was  the  Ashton  set  forth  above. 

But  she  had  a  soul  above  ducks  —  above  nightingales  ; 
aye,  even  above  the  birds  of  paradise.  She  was  very 
beautiful,  with  quiet  ways,  and  seemed  genuine.  She 
had  both  taste  and  talent  for  the  stage,  and  she  liked  to 
stay  at  home  and  read  and  make  caps  for  her  mother. 
She  was  unvaryingly  kind  and  friendly  with  Binkley  & 
Bing's  press-agent.  Since  the  theatre  had  closed  she 
had  allowed  Mr.  Vandiver  to  call  in  an  unofficial  role.  I 
had  often  spoken  to  her  of  my  friend,  Spencer  Grcnvillc 
North ;  and  so,  as  it  was  early,  the  first  turn  of  the  vaude 
ville  being  not  yet  over,  we  left  to  find  a  telephone. 

Miss  Ashton  would  be  very  glad  to  see  Mr.  Vandiver 
and  Mr.  North. 

We  found  her  fitting  a  new  cap  on  her  mother.  I 
never  saw  her  look  more  charming. 

North  made  himself  disagreeably  entertaining.     He 


236  Options 

was  a  good  talker,  and  had  a  way  with  him.  Besides,  he 
had  two,  ten,  or  thirty  millions,  I've  forgotten  which.  I 
incautiously  admired  the  mother's  cap,  whereupon  she 
brought  out  her  store  of  a  dozen  or  two,  and  I  took  a 
course  in  edgings  and  frills.  Even  though  Annie's  fingers 
gers  had  pinked,  or  ruchcd,  or  hemmed,  or  whatever  you 
do  to  'em,  they  palled  upon  me.  And  I  could  hear 
North  drivelling  to  Annie  about  his  odious  Adirondack 
camp. 

Two  days  after  that  I  saw  North  in  his  motor-car 
with  Miss  Ashton  and  her  mother.  On  the  next  after 
noon  he  dropped  in  on  me. 

"Bobby,"  said  he,  "this  old  burg  isn't  such  a  bad 
proposition  in  the  summer-time,  after  all.  Since  I've 
been  knocking  around  it  looks  better  to  inc.  There  are 
some  fir&t-ratc  musical  comedies  and  light  operas  on  the 
roofs  and  in  the  outdoor  gardens.  And  if  you  hunt  up 
the  right  places  and  stick  to  soft  drinks,  you  can  keep 
about  as  cool  here  as  you  can  in  the  country.  Hang  it ! 
when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  there's  nothing  much  to  the 
country,  anyhow.  You  get  tired  and  sunburned  and 
lonesome,  and  you  have  to  cat  any  old  thing  that  the  cook 
dishes  up  to  you." 

"It  makes  a  difference,  doesn't  it?"  said  I. 

"It  certainly  does.  Now,  I  found  some  whitebait 
yesterday,  at  Maurice's,  with  a  new  sauce  that  beats 
anything  in  the  trout  line  I  ever  tasted." 

"It  makes  a  difference,  doesn't  it?"  I  said. 


Rus  in  Urbe  237 

"Immense.  The  sauce  is  the  main  thing  with  white 
bait," 

"It  makes  a  difference,  doesn't  it?"  I  asked,  looking 
him  straight  in  the  eye.  He  understood. 

"Look  here,  Bob,"  he  said,  "I  was  going  to  tell  you. 
I  couldn't  help  it.  I'll  play  fair  with  you,  but  I'm  going 
in  to  win.  She  is  the  'one  particular'  for  me." 

"All  right,"  said  I.  "It's  a  fair  field.  There  are  no 
rights  for  you  to  encroach  upon." 

On  Thursday  afternoon  Miss  Ashton  invited  North 
and  myself  to  have  tea  in  her  apartment.  He  was  de 
voted,  and  she  was  more  charming  than  usual.  By 
avoiding  the  subject  of  caps  I  managed  to  get  a  word  or 
two  into  and  out  of  the  talk.  Miss  Ashton  asked  me  in 
a  make-conversational  tone  something  about  the  next 
season's  tour. 

"Oli,"  said  I,  "I  don't  know  about  that.  I'm  not 
going  to  be  with  Binkley  &  Bing  next  season." 

"Why,  I  thought,"  said  she,  "that  they  were  going  to 
put  the  Number  One  road  company  under  your  charge. 
I  thought  you  told  me  so." 

"They  were,"  said  I,  "but  they  won't.  I'll  tell  you 
what  I'm  going  to  do.  I'm  going  to  the  south  shore  of 
Long  Island  and  buy  a  small  cottage  I  know  there  on  the 
edge  of  the  bay.  And  I'll  buy  a  catboat  and  a  rowboat 
and  a  shotgun  and  a  yellow  dog.  I've  got  money  enough 
to  do  it.  And  I'll  smell  the  salt  wind  all  day  when  it 
blows  from  the  sea  and  the  pine  odor  when  it  blows  from 


238  Options 

the  land.  And,  of  course,  I'll  write  plays  until  I  have  a 
trunk  full  of  'em  on  hand. 

"And  the  next  thing  and  the  biggest  thing  I'll  do  will 
be  to  buy  that  duck-farm  next  door.  Few  people  under 
stand  ducks.  I  can  watch  'em  for  hours.  They  can 
march  better  than  any  company  in  the  National  Guard, 
and  they  can  play  'follow  my  leader'  better  than  the  en 
tire  Democratic  party.  Their  voices  don't  amount  to 
much,  but  I  like  to  hear  'em.  They  wake  you  up  a  dozen 
times  a  night,  but  there's  a  homely  sound  about  their 
quacking  that  is  more  musical  to  me  than  the  cry  of 
'Fresh  strawber-rees !'  under  your  window  in  the  mean 
ing  when  you  want  to  sleep. 

"And,"  I  went  on,  enthusiastically,  "do  you  knov»  the 
value  of  ducks  bcsidce  their  beauty  and  intelligence  and 
order  and  sweetness  of  voice?  Picking  their  feathers 
gives  an  unfailing  and  never-ceasing  income.  On  a  farm 
that  I  know  the  feathers  were  sold  for  $400  in  one  year. 
Think  of  that !  And  the  ones  shipped  to  the  market  will 
bring  in  more  money  than  that.  Yes,  I  am  for  the  ducks 
and  the  salt  breeze  coming  over  the  bay.  I  think  I  shall 
get  a  Chinaman  cook,  and  with  him  and  the  dog  and 
the  sunsets  for  company  I  shall  do  well.  No  more  of 
this  dull,  baking,  senseless,  roaring  city  for  me." 

Miss  Ashton  looked  surprised.     North  laughed. 

"I  am  going  to  begin  one  of  my  plays  to-night,"  I  said, 
"so  I  must  be  going."  And  with  that  I  took  my  de 
parture. 


Rus  in  Urbe  239 

A  few  days  later  Miss  Ashton  telephoned  to  nae,  ask 
ing  me  to  call  at  four  in  the  afternoon.  I  did. 

"You  have  been  very  good  to  me,"  she  said,  hesitat 
ingly,  "and  I  thought  I  would  tell  you.  I  am  going  to 
leave  the  stage." 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "I  suppose  you  will.  They  usually  do 
when  there's  so  much  money." 

"There  is  no  money,"  she  said,  "or  very  little.  Our 
money  is  almost  gone." 

"But  I  am  told,"  said  I,  "that  he  has  something  like 
two  or  ten  or  thirty  millions  —  I  have  forgotten  which." 

"I  know  what  you  mean,"  she  said.  "I  will  not  pre 
tend  that  I  do  not.  I  am  not  going  to  marry  Mr.  North." 

"Then  why  are  you  leaving  the  stage?"  I  asked,  se 
verely.  "What  else  can  you  do  to  earn  a  living?" 

She  came  closer  to  me,  and  I  can  see  the  look  in  her 
eyes  yet  as  she  spoke. 

"I  can  pick  ducks,"  she  said. 

We  sold  the  first  year's  feathers  for  $350. 


A  POOR  RULE 

I  HAVE  always  maintained,  and  asserted  from  time 
to  time,  that  woman  is  no  mystery ;  that  man  can  fore 
tell,  construe,  subdue,  comprehend,  and  interpret  her. 
That  she  is  a  mystery  has  been  foisted  by  herself  upon 
credulous  mankind.  Whether  I  am  right  or  wrong  we 
shall  see.  As  "Harper's  Drawer"  used  to  say  in  bygone 

years:     "The  following  good  story  is  told  of  Miss , 

Mr. ,  Mr. ,  and  Mr. ." 

We  shall  have  to  omit  "Bishop  X"     and  "the  Rev. 
,"  for  the}'  do  not  belong. 


In  those  days  Paloma  was  a  new  town  on  the  line  of 
the  Southern  Pacific.  A  reporter  would  have  called  it  a 
"mushroom"  town :  but  it  was  not.  Paloma  was,  first 
and  last,  of  the  toadstool  variety. 

The  train  stopped  there  at  noon  for  the  engine  to  drink 
and  for  the  passengers  both  to  drink  and  to  dine.  There 
was  a  new  yellow-pine  hotel,  also  a  wool  warehouse,  and 
perhaps  three  dozen  box  residences.  The  rest  was 
composed  of  tents,  cow  ponies,  "black-waxy"  mud,  and 
mesquitc-trecs,  all  bound  round  by  a  horizon.  Paloma 
was  an  about-to-be  city.  The  houses  represented  faith  ; 
the  tents  hope :  the  twice-a-day  train,  by  which  you  might 
leave,  creditably  sustained  the  role  of  charity. 

240 


A  Poor  llulc  241 

The  Parisian  Restaurant  occupied  the  muddiest  spot 
in  the  town  \\hile  it  rained,  and  the  warmest  when  it  shone. 
It  was  operated,  owned,  and  perpetrated  by  a  citizen 
known  as  Old  Man  Hinklc,  who  had  come  out  of  Indiana 
to  make  his  fortune  in  this  land  of  condensed  milk  and 
sorghum. 

There  was  a  four-room,  unpaintcd,  weather-boarded 
box  house  in  which  the  family  lived.  From  the  kitchen 
extended  a  "shelter"  made  of  poles  covered  with  chapar 
ral  brush.  Under  this  was  a  table  and  two  benches,  each 
twenty  feet  long,  the  product  of  Paloma  home  carpentry. 
Here  was  set  forth  the  roast  mutton,  the  stewed  apples, 
boiled  beans,  soda-biscuits,  puddinorpie,  and  hot  coffee 
of  the  Parisian  menu. 

Ma  Hinklc  and  a  subordinate  known  to  the  ears  as 
"Betty,"  but  denied  to  the  eyesight,  presided  at  the 
range.  Pa  Hinklc  himself,  with  salamandrous  thumbs, 
served  the  scalding  viands.  During  rush  hours  a  Mexi 
can  youth,  who  rolled  and  smoked  cigarettes  between 
courses,  aided  him  in  waiting  on  the  guests.  As  is  cus 
tomary  at  Parisian  banquets  I  place  the  sweets  at  the 
end  of  my  wordy  menu. 

IleenH  inkle! 

The  spelling  is  correct,  for  I  have  seen  her  write  it. 
No  doubt  she  had  been  named  by  ear;  but  she  so  splen 
didly  bore  the  orthography  that  Tom  Moore  himself 
(had  he  seen  her)  would  have  endorsed  the  phonography. 

Ilcen  was  the  daughter  of  the  house,  and  the  first  Lady 
Cashier  to  invade  the  territory  south  of  an  east-and-west 


242  Options 

line  drawn  through  Galveston  and  Del  Rio.  She  «at  on 
a  high  stool  in  a  rough  pine  grand-stand  —  or  was  it  a 
temple?  —  under  the  shelter  at  the  door  of  the  kitchen. 
There  was  a  barbed-wire  protection  in  front  of  her,  with 
a  little  arch  under  which  you  passed  jour  money. 
Heaven  knows  why  the  barbed  wire ;  for  every  man  who 
dined  Parisianly  there  would  have  died  in  her  service. 
Her  duties  were  light ;  each  meal  wa*  a  dollar ;  you  put  it 
under  the  arch,  and  she  took  it. 

I  set  out  with  the  intent  to  describe  Ileen  Hinkle  to 
you.  Instead,  I  must  refer  you  to  the  volume  of  Edmund 
Burke  entitled :  A  Philosophical  Inquiry  into  the  Origin 
of  Our  Ideas  of  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful.  It  is  an  ex 
haustive  treatise,  dealing  first  with  the  primitive  concep 
tions  of  beauty  —  roundness  and  smoothness,  I  think 
they  are,  according  to  Burke.  It  is  well  said.  Rotund 
ity  is  a  patent  charm  ;  as  for  smoothness  —  the  more  new 
wrinkles  a  woman  acquires,  the  smoother  she  becomes. 

Ileen  was  a  strictly  vegetable  compound,  guaranteed 
under  the  Pure  Ambrosia  and  Balm-of-Gilead  Act  of  the 
year  of  the  fall  of  Adam.  She  was  a  fruit-stand  blonde 
—  strawberries,  peaches,  cherries,  etc.  Her  eyes  were 
wide  apart,  and  she  possessed  the  calm  that  precedes  a 
storm  that  never  comes.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  words 
(at  any  rate  per)  are  wasted  in  an  effort  to  describe  the 
beautiful.  Like  fancy,  "It  is  engendered  in  the  eyes." 
There  are  three  kinds  of  beauties  —  I  was  foreordained 
to  be  homiletic ;  I  can  never  stick  to  a  story. 

The  firet  is  the  freckle-faced,  snub-nosed  girl  whom 


A  Poor  Rule  243 

you  like.  The  second  is  Maud  Adams.  The  third  is, 
or  are,  the  ladies  in  Bouguercau's  paintings.  Ilecn  Hin- 
kle  was  the  fourth.  She  was  the  mayoress  of  Spotless 
Town.  There  were  a  thousand  golden  apples  coming 
to  her  as  Helen  of  the  Troy  laundries. 

The  Parisian  Restaurant  was  within  a  radius.  Even 
from  beyond  its  circumference  men  rode  in  to  Paloma  to 
win  her  smiles.  They  got  them.  One  meal  —  one 
smile  —  one  dollar.  But,  with  all  her  impartiality,  Ileen 
seemed  to  favor  three  of  her  admirers  above  the  rest. 
According  to  the  rules  of  politeness,  I  will  mention  my 
self  last. 

The  first  was  an  artificial  product  known  as  Bryan 
Jacks  —  a  name  that  had  obviously  met  with  reverses. 
Jacks  was  the  outcome  of  paved  cities.  He  was  a  small 
man  made  of  some  material  resembling  flexible  sandstone. 
His  hair  was  the  color  of  a  brick  Quaker  meeting-house ; 
his  eyes  were  twin  cranberries ;  his  mouth  was  like  the 
aperture  under  a  drop-lettcrs-here  sign. 

He  knew  every  city  from  Bangor  to  San  Francisco, 
thence  north  to  Portland,  thence  S.  45  E.  to  a  given  point 
in  Florida.  He  had  mastered  every  art,  trade,  game, 
business,  profession,  and  sport  in  the  world,  had  been 
present  at,  or  hurrying  on  his  way  to,  every  headline 
event  that  had  occurred  between  oceans  since  he  was 
five  years  old.  You  might  open  the  atlas,  place  your 
finger  at  random  upon  the  name  of  a  town,  and  Jacks 
would  tell  you  the  front  names  of  three  prominent  citi 
zens  before  you  could  close  it  again.  He  spoke  patron- 


244  Options 

izingly  and  even  disrespectfully  of  Broadway,  Beacon 
Hill,  Michigan,  Euclid,  and  Fifth  avenues,  and  the  St. 
Louis  Four  Courts.  Compared  with  him  as  a  cosmopo 
lite,  the  Wandering  Jew  would  have  seemed  a  mere  her 
mit.  He  had  learned  everything  the  world  could  teach 
him,  and  he  would  tell  you  about  it. 

I  hate  to  be  reminded  of  Pollok's  "Course  of  Time," 
and  so  do  you ;  but  every  time  I  saw  Jacks  I  would  think 
of  the  poet's  description  of  another  poet  by  the  name  of 
G.  G.  Byron  who  "Drank  early;  deeply  drank  —  drank 
draughts  that  common  millions  might  have  quenched; 
then  died  of  thirst  because  there  was  no  more  to 
drink." 

That  fitted  Jacks,  except  that,  instead  of  dying,  lie 
came  to  Paloma,  which  was  about  the  same  thing.  He 
was  a  telegrapher  and  station-and-exprcss  agent  at 
seventy-five  dollars  a  month.  Why  a  young  man  who 
knew  everything  and  could  do  everything  was  content 
to  serve  in  such  an  obscure  capacity  I  never  could  under 
stand,  although  he  let  out  a  hint  once  that  it  was  as  a 
personal  favor  to  the  president  and  stockholders  of  the 
S.  P.  Ry  Co. 

One  more  line  of  description,  and  I  turn  Jacks  over 
to  you.  He  wore  bright  blue  clothes,  yellow  shoes,  and 
a  bow  tie  made  of  the  same  cloth  as  his  shirt. 

My  rival  No.  £  was  Bud  Cunningham,  whose  services 
had  been  engaged  by  a  ranch  near  Paloma  to  assist  in 
compelling  refractory  cattle  to  keep  within  the  bounds  of 
decorum  and  order.  Bud  was  the  only  cowboy  off  the 


A  Poor  Rule  245 

stage  that  I  ever  saw  who  looked  like  one  on  it.  He  wore 
the  sombrero,  the  chaps,  and  the  handkerchief  tied  at 
the  back  of  his  neck. 

Twice  a  week  Bud  rode  in  from  the  Val  Verde  Ranch 
to  sup  at  the  Parisian  Restaurant.  He  rode  a  many- 
high-handed  Kentucky  horse  at  a  tremendously  fast  lope, 
which  animal  he  would  rein  up  so  suddenly  under  the  big 
mesquite  at  the  corner  of  the  brush  shelter  that  his  hoofs 
would  plough  canals  yards  long  in  the  loam. 

Jacks  and  I  were  regular  boarders  at  the  restaurant, 
of  course. 

The  front  room  of  the  Hinkle  House  was  as  neat  a  lit 
tie  parlor  as  there  was  in  the  black-waxy  country.     It 
•was  all  willow  rocking-chairs,  and  home-knit  tidies,  and 
albums,  and  conch  shells  in  a  row.     And  a  little  upright 
piano  in  one  corner. 

Here  Jacks  and  Bud  and  I —  or  sometimes  one  or  two 
of  us,  according  to  our  good-luck  —  used  to  sit  of  eve 
nings  when  the  tide  of  trade  was  over,  and  "visit"  Miss 
Hinkle. 

Ileen  was  a  girl  of  ideas.  She  was  destined  for  higher 
things  (if  there  can  be  anything  higher)  than  taking  in 
dollars  all  day  through  a  barbed-wire  wicket.  She  had 
read  and  listened  and  thought.  Her  looks  would  have 
formed  a  career  for  a  less  ambitious  girl ;  but,  rising  su 
perior  to  mere  beauty,  she  must  establish  something  in 
the  nature  of  a  salon  —  the  only  one  in  Palorna. 

"Don't  3rou  think  that  Shakespeare  was  a  great 
•writer?"  she  would  ask,  with  such  a  pretty  little  knit  of 


243  Options 

her  arched  brows  that  the  late  Ignatius  Donnelly,  him 
self,  had  he  seen  it,  could  scarcely  have  saved  his  Bacon. 

Ileen  was  of  the  opinion,  also,  that  Boston  is  more 
cultured  than  Chicago ;  that  Rosa  Bonheur  was  one  of 
the  greatest  of  women  painters;  that  Westerners  are 
more  spontaneous  and  open-hearted  than  Easterners; 
that  London  must  be  a  very  foggy  city,  and  that  Cali 
fornia  must  be  quite  lovely  in  the  springtime.  And  of 
many  other  opinions  indicating  a  keeping  up  with  the 
world's  best  thought. 

These,  however,  were  but  gleaned  from  hearsay  and 
evidence:  Ileen  had  theories  of  her  own.  One,  in  par 
ticular,  she  disseminated  to  ua  untiringly.  Flattery  she 
detested.  Frankness  and  honesty  of  speech  and  action, 
she  declared,  were  the  chief  mental  ornaments  of  man  and 
woman.  If  ever  she  could  like  any  one,  it  would  be  for 
those  qualities. 

"I'm  awfully  weary,"  she  said,  one  evening,  when  we 
three  musketeers  of  the  mesquite  were  in  the  little  parlor, 
"of  having  compliments  on  my  looks  paid  to  me.  I  know 
I'm  not  beautiful." 

(Bud  Cunningham  told  me  afterward  that  it  was  all 
he  could  do  to  keep  from  calling  her  a  liar  when  she  said 
that.) 

"I'm  only  a  little  Middle-Western  girl,"  went  on 
Heen,  "who  just  wants  to  be  simple  and  neat,  and  tries  to 
help  her  father  make  a  humble  living." 

(Old  Man  Hinkle  was  shipping  a  thousand  silver  dol 
lars  a  month,  clear  profit,  to  a  bank  in  San  Antonio.) 


A  Poor  Rule  247 

Bud  twisted  around  in  his  chair  and  bent  the  rim  of  his 
hat,  from  which  lie  could  never  be  persuaded  to  separate. 
He  did  not  know  whether  she  wanted  what  she  said  she 
wanted  or  what  she  knew  she  deserved.  Many  a  wiser 
man  has  hesitated  at  deciding.  Bud  decided. 

"Why  —  ah,  Miss  Ileen,  beauty,  as  you  might  say, 
ain't  everything.  Not  sayin'  that  you  haven't  your 
share  of  good  looks,  I  always  admired  more  than  any 
thing  else  about  you  the  nice,  kind  way  you  treat  your  ma 
and  pa.  Any  one  what's  good  to  their  parents  and  is  a 
kind  of  home-body  don't  specially  need  to  be  too  pretty." 

Ileen  gave  him  one  of  her  sweetest  smiles.  "Thank 
you,  Mr.  Cunningham,"  she  said.  "I  consider  that  one 
of  the  finest  compliments  I've  had  in  a  long  time.  I'd 
so  much  rather  hear  you  say  that  than  to  hear  you  talk 
about  my  eyes  and  hair.  I'm  glad  you  believe  me  when 
I  say  I  don't  like  flattery." 

Our  cue  was  there  for  us.  Bud  had  made  a  good  guess. 
You  couldn't  lose  Jacks.  He  chimed  in  next. 

"Sure  thing,  Miss  Ileen,"  he  said ;  "the  good-lookers 
don't  always  win  out.  Now,  you  ain't  bad  looking,  of 
course  —  but  that's  nix-cum-rous.  I  knew  a  girl  once  in 
Dubuque  with  a  face  like  a  cocoanut,  who  could  skin  the 
cat  twice  on  a  horizontal  bar  without  changing  hands. 
Now,  a  girl  might  have  the  California  peach  crop  mashed 
to  a  marmalade  and  not  be  able  to  do  that.  I've  seen  — 
er  —  worse  lookers  than  you,  Miss  Ilccn ;  but  what  I  like 
about  you  is  the  business  way  you've  got  of  doing  things. 
Cool  and  wise  —  that's  the  winning  way  for  a  girl.  Mr. 


248  Options 

Hinkle  told  me  the  other  day  you'd  never  taken  in  a 
lead  silver  dollar  or  a  plugged  one  since  you've  been 
on  the  job.  Now,  that's  the  stuff  for  a  girl  —  that's 
what  catches  me." 

Jacks  got  his  smile,  too. 

"Thank  you,  Mr.  Jacks,"  said  Ileen.  "If  you  only 
knew  how  I  appreciate  any  one's  being  candid  and  not  a 
flatterer !  I  get  so  tired  of  people  telling  me  I'm  pretty. 
I  think  it  is  the  loveliest  thing  to  have  friends  who  tell 
you  the  truth." 

Then  I  thought  I  saw  an  expectant  look  on  Heen's 
face  as  she  glanced  toward  me.  I  had  a  wild,  sudden 
impulse  to  dare  fate,  and  tell  her  of  all  the  beautiful 
handiwork  of  the  Great  Artificer  she  was  the  most  ex 
quisite —  that  she  was  a  flawless  pearl  gleaming  pure 
and  serene  in  a  setting  of  black  mud  and  emerald  prairies 
—  that  she  was  —  a--— a  corker;  and  that  as  for  mine,  I 
cared  not  if  she  were  as  cruel  as  a  serpent's  tooth  to  her 
fond  parents,  or  if  she  couldn't  tell  a  plugged  dollar 
from  a  bridle  buckle,  if  I  might  sing,  chant,  praise, 
glorify*  and  worship  her  peerless  and  wonderful  beauty. 

But  I  -refrained.  I  feared  the  fate  of  a  flatterer.  I  had 
witnessed  her  delight  at  the  crafty  and  discreet  words  of 
Bud  and  Jacks.  No !  Miss  Hinkle  was  not  one  to  be 
beguiled  by  the  plated-silver  tongue  of  a  flatterer.  S<? 
I  joined  the  ranks  of  the  candid  and  honest.  At  once  I 
became  mendacious  and  didactic. 

"In  all  ages,  Miss  Hinkle,"  said  I,  "in  spite  of  the 
poetry  and  romance  of  each,  intellect  in  woman  has  beeix 


A  Poo?'  Hide  249 

admired  more  than  beauty.  Even  in  Cleopatra,  herself, 
men  found  more  a  charm  in  her  queenly  mind  than  in  her 
looks." 

"Well,  I  should  think  so!"  said  Ilcen.  "I've  seen 
pictures  of  her  that  weren't  so  much.  She  had  an  aw 
fully  long  nose." 

"If  I  may  say  so,"  I  went  on,  "you  remind  me  of 
Cleopatra,  Miss  Ilecn." 

"Why,  my  nose  isn't  so  long !"  said  she,  opening  her 
eyes  wide  and  touching  that  comely  feature  with  a 
dimpled  forefinger. 

"Why  —  er  —  I  mean,"  said  I  — "I  mean  as  to  mental 
endowments." 

"Oh!"  said  she;  and  then  I  got  my  smile  just  as  Bud 
and  Jacks  had  got  theirs. 

"Thank  every  one  of  you,"  she  said,  very,  very  sweetly, 
"for  being  so  frank  and  honest  with  me.  That's  the 
way  I  want  you  to  be  always.  Just  tell  me  plainly  and 
truthfully  what  you  think,  and  we'll  all  be  the  best  friends 
in  the  world.  And  now,  because  you've  been  so  good  to 
me,  and  understand  so  well  how  I  dislike  people  who  do 
nothing  but  pay  me  exaggerated  compliments,  I'll  sing 
and  play  a  little  for  you." 

Of  course,  we  expressed  our  thanks  and  joy;  but  we 
would  have  been  better  pleased  if  Ileen  had  remained  in 
her  low  rocking-chair  face  to  face  with  us  and  let  us  gaze 
upon  her.  For  she  was  no  Adelina  Patti  —  not  even  on 
the  farcwellest  of  the  diva's  farewell  tours.  She  had  a 
cooing  little  voice  like  that  of  a  turtle-dove  that  could 


250  Options 

almost  fill  the  parlor  when  the  windows  and  doors  were 
closed,  and  Betty  was  not  rattling  the  lids  of  the  stove  in 
the  kitchen.  She  had  a  gamut  that  I  estimate  at  about 
eight  inches  on  the  piano ;  and  her  runs  and  trills  sounded 
like  the  clothes  bubbling  in  your  grandmother's  iron 
•washpot.  Believe  that  she  must  have  been  beautiful 
when  I  tell  you  that  it  sounded  like  music  to  us. 

Ileen's  musical  taste  was  catholic.  She  would  sing 
through  a  pile  of  sheet  music  on  the  left-hand  top  of  the 
piano,  laying  each  slaughtered  composition  on  the  right- 
hand  top.  The  next  evening  she  would  sing  from  right 
to  left.  Her  favorites  were  Mendelssohn,  and  Moody 
and  Sankcy.  By  request  she  always  wound  up  with 
"Sweet  Violets"  and  "When  the  Leaves  Begin  to  Turn." 

When  we  left  at  ten  o'clock  the  three  of  us  would  go 
down  to  Jacks'  little  wooden  station  and  sit  on  the  plat 
form,  swinging  our  feet  and  trying  to  pump  one  another 
for  clews  as  to  which  way  Miss  Ileen's  inclinations  seemed 
to  lean.  That  is  the  way  of  rivals  —  they  do  not  avoid 
«.nd  glower  at  one  another;  they  convene  and  converse 
and  construe  —  striving  by  the  art  politic  to  estimate 
the  strength  of  the  enemy. 

One  day  there  came  a  dark  horse  to  Paloma,  a  young 
lawyer  who  at  once  flaunted  his  shingle  and  himself 
spectacularly  upon  the  town.  His  name  was  C.  Vincent 
Vescy.  You  could  see  at  a  glance  that  he  was  a  recent 
graduate  of  a  Southwestern  law  school.  His  Prince 
Albert  coat,  light  striped  trousers,  broad-brimmed  soft 
black  hat,  and  narrow  white  muslin  bow  tie  proclaimed 


A  Poor  Rule  251 

that  more  loudly  than  any  diploma  could.  Vesey  was 
a  compound  of  Daniel  Webster,  Lord  Chesterfield,  Beau 
Brummell,  and  Little  Jack  Homer.  His  coming  boomed 
Paloma.  The  next  day  after  he  arrived  an  addition  to 
the  town  was  surveyed  and  laid  off  in  lots. 

Of  course,  Vesey,  to  further  his  professional  fortunes, 
must  mingle  with  the  citizenry  and  outliers  of  Paloma. 
And,  as  well  as  with  the  soldier  men,  he  was  bound  to 
seek  popularity  with  the  gay  dogs  of  the  place.  So 
Jacks  and  Bud  Cunningham  and  I  came  to  be  honored 
by  his  acquaintance. 

The  doctrine  of  predestination  would  have  been  dis 
credited  had  not  Vesey  seen  Ileen  Hinkle  and  become 
fourth  in  the  tourney.  Magnificently,  he  boarded  at  the 
yellow-pine  hotel  instead  of  at  the  Parisian  Restaurant ; 
but  he  came  to  be  a  formidable  visitor  in  the  Hinkle  par 
lor.  His  competition  reduced  Bud  to  an  inspired  increase 
of  profanity,  drove  Jacks  to  an  outburst  of  slang  so  weird 
that  it  sounded  more  horrible  than  the  most  trenchant  of 
Bud's  imprecations,  and  made  me  dumb  with  gloom. 

For  Vesey  had  the  rhetoric.  Words  flowed  from  him 
like  oil  from  a  gusher.  Hyperbole,  compliment,  praise, 
appreciation,  honeyed  gallantry,  golden  opinions,  eu 
logy,  and  unveiled  panegyric  vied  with  one  another  for 
pre-eminence  in  his  speech.  We  had  small  hopes  that 
Ileen  could  resist  his  oratory  and  Prince  Albert. 

But  a  day  came  that  gave  us  courage. 

About  dusk  one  evening  I  was  sitting  on  the  little 
gallery  in  front  of  the  Hinkle  parlor,  waiting  for  Ileen  to 


252  Options 

come,  when  I  heard  voices  inside.  She  had  come  into  the 
room  with  her  father,  and  Old  Man  Hinkle  began  to  talk 
to  her.  I  had  observed  before  that  he  was  a  shrewd  man, 
and  not  unphilosophic. 

"Ily,"  said  he,  "I  notice  there's  three  or  four  young 
fellers  that  have  been  callin'  to  see  you  regular  for  quite 
a  while.  Is  there  any  one  of  'em  you  like  better  than 
another?" 

"Why,  pa,"  she  answered,  "I  like  all  of  'em  very  well. 
I  think  Mr.  Cunningham  and  Mr.  Jacks  and  Mr.  Harris 
are  very  nice  young  men.  They  are  so  frank  and  honest 
in  everything  they  say  to  me.  I  haven't  known  Mr. 
Vesey  very  long,  but  I  think  he's  a  very  nice  young 
man,  he's  so  frank  and  honest  in  everything  he  says 
to  me." 

"Now,  that's  what  I'm  gittin'  at,"  says  old  Hinkle. 
"You've  always  been  sayin'  you  like  people  what  tell  the 
truth  and  don't  go  humbuggin'  you  with  compliments 
and  bogus  talk.  Now,  suppose  you  make  a  test  of  these 
fellers,  and  see  which  one  of  'em  will  talk  the  straightest 
to  you." 

"Buthow'llldoit,pa?" 

"I'll  tell  you  how.  You  know  you  sing  a  little  bit, 
Uy ;  you  took  music-lessons  nearly  two  years  in  Logans- 
port.  It  wasn't  long,  but  it  was  all  we  could  afford  then. 
And  your  teacher  said  you  didn't  have  any  voice,  and  it 
was  a  waste  of  money  to  keep  on.  Now,  suppose  you 
ask  the  fellers  what  they  think  of  your  singin',  and  see 
what  each  one  of  'em  tells  you.  The  man  that'll  tell  you 


A  Poor  Rule  253 

the  truth  about  it'll  have  a  mighty  lot  of  nerve,  and  '11 
do  to  tie  to.  What  do  you  think  of  the  plan  ?" 

"All  right,  pa,"  said  Ileen.  "I  think  it's  a  good  idea. 
I'll  try  it." 

Ileen  and  Mr.  Hinkle  went  out  of  the  room  through  the 
inside  door.  Unobserved,  I  hurried  down  to  the  station. 
Jacks  was  at  his  telegraph  table  waiting  for  eight  o'clock 
to  come.  It  was  Bud's  night  in  town,  and  when  he  rode 
in  I  repeated  the  conversation  to  them  both.  I  was  loyal 
to  my  rivals,  as  all  true  admirers  of  all  Ileens  should  be. 

Simultaneously  the  three  of  us  were  smitten  by  an  up 
lifting  thought.  Surely  this  test  would  eliminate  Vesey 
from  the  contest.  He,  with  his  unctuous  flattery,  would 
be  driven  from  the  lists.  Well  we  remembered  Ileen's 
love  of  frankness  and  honesty  —  how  she  treasured  truth 
and  candor  above  vain  compliment  and  blandishment. 

Linking  arms,  we  did  a  grotesque  dance  of  joy  up  and 
down  the  platform,  singing  "Muldoon  Was  a  Solid  Man'* 
at  the  top  of  our  voices. 

That  evening  four  of  the  willow  rocking-chairs  were 
filled  besides  the  lucky  one  that  sustained  the  trim  figure 
of  Miss  Hinkle.  Three  of  us  waited  with  suppressed 
excitement  the  application  of  the  test.  It  was  tried  on 
Bud  first. 

"Mr.  Cunningham,"  said  Ileen,  with  her  dazzling  smile, 
after  she  had  sung  "When  the  Leaves  Begin  to  Turn," 
"what  do  you  really  think  of  my  voice?  Frankly  and 
honestly,  now,  as  you  know  I  want  you  to  always  be 
Coward  me." 


254  Options 

Bud  squirmed  in  his  chair  at  his  chance  to  show  the 
sincerity  that  he  knew  was  required  of  him. 

"Tell  you  the  truth,  Miss  Ileen,"  he  said,  earnestly, 
"you  ain't  got  much  more  voice  than  a  weasel  —  just 
a  little  squeak,  you  know.  Of  course,  we  all  like  to  hear 
you  sing,  for  it's  kind  of  sweet  and  soothin'  after  all, 
and  you  look  most  as  mighty  well  sittin'  on  the  piano- 
stool  as  you  do  faced  around.  But  as  for  real  singin' — 
J  reckon  you  couldn't  call  it  that." 

I  looked  closely  at  Ileen  to  see  if  Bud  had  overdone  his 
frankness,  but  her  pleased  smile  and  sweetly  spoken 
thanks  assured  me  that  we  were  on  the  right  track. 

"And  what  do  you  think,  Mr.  Jacks?"  she  asked 
next. 

"Take  it  from  me,"  said  Jacks,  "you  ain't  in  the  prima 
donna  class.  I've  heard  'em  warble  in  every  city  in  the 
United  States ;  and  I  tell  you  your  vocal  output  don't  go. 
Otherwise,  you've  got  the  grand  opera  bunch  sent  to  the 
soap  factory  —  in  looks,  I  mean ;  for  the  high  screechers 
generally  look  like  Mary  Ann  on  her  Thursday  out.  But 
nix  for  the  gargle  work.  Your  epiglottis  ain't  a  real 
side-stepper  —  it's  footwork  ain't  good." 

With  a  merry  laugh  at  Jack's  criticism,  Ileen  looked 
inquiringly  at  me. 

I  admit  that  I  faltered  a  little.  Was  there  not  such  a 
thing  as  being  too  frank  ?  Perhaps  I  even  hedged  a  little 
in  my  verdict ;  but  I  stayed  with  the  critics. 

"I  am  not  skilled  in  scientific  music,  Miss  Ileen,"  I  said, 
"but  frankly  I  cannot  praise  very  highly  the  singing- 


A  Poor  Rule  255 

voice  that  Nature  has  given  you.  It  has  long  been  a  fa 
vorite  comparison  that  a  great  singer  sings  like  a  bird. 
Well,  there  are  birds  and  birds.  I  would  say  that  your 
voice  reminds  me  of  the  thrush's  —  throaty  and  not 
strong,  nor  of  much  compass  or  variety  —  but  still  —  er 
—  sweet  —  in  —  er  —  its  —  way,  and  —  er  — 

"Thank  you,  Mr.  Harris,"  interrupted  Miss  Hinkle. 
"I  knew  I  could  depend  upon  your  frankness  and  hon 
esty." 

And  then  C.  Vincent  Vesey  drew  back  one  sleeve  from 
his  snowy  cuff,  and  the  water  came  down  at  Lodore. 

My  memory  cannot  do  justice  to  his  masterly  tribute 
to  that  priceless,  God-given  treasure  —  Miss  Hinkle's 
voice.  He  raved  over  it  in  terms  that,  if  they  had  been 
addressed  to  the  morning  stars  when  they  sang  together, 
would  have  made  that  stellar  choir  explode  in  a  meteoric 
shower  of  flaming  self-satisfaction. 

He  marshalled  on  his  white  finger-tips  the  grand  opera 
stars  of  all  the  continents,  from  Jenny  Lind  to  Emma 
Abbott,  only  to  depreciate  their  endowments.  He  spoke 
of  larynxes,  of  chest  notes,  of  phrasing,  arpeggios,  and 
other  strange  paraphernalia  of  the  throaty  art.  He 
admitted,  as  though  driven  to  a  corner,  that  Jenny  Lind 
had  a  note  or  two  in  the  high  register  that  Miss  Hinkle 
had  not  yet  acquired  —  but  — "  ! ! !" —  that  was  a  mere 
matter  of  practice  and  training. 

And,  as  a  peroration,  he  predicted  —  solemnly  pre 
dicted  —  a  career  in  vocal  art  for  the  "coming  star  of  the 
Southwest  —  and  one  of  which  grand  old  Texas  may  well 


256  Options 

be  proud,"  hitherto  unsurpassed  in  the  annals  of  musical 
history. 

When  we  left  at  ten,  Ileen  gave  each  of  us  her  usual 
warm,  cordial  handshake,  entrancing  smile,  and  invita 
tion  to  call  again.  I  could  not  see  that  one  was  favored 
above  or  below  another  —  but  three  of  us  knew  —  we 
knew. 

We  knew  that  frankness  and  honesty  had  won,  and 
that  the  rivals  now  numbered  three  instead  of  four. 

Down  at  the  station  Jacks  brought  out  a  pint  bottle  of 
the  proper  stuff,  and  we  celebrated  the  downfall  of  a 
blatant  interloper. 

Four  days  went  by  without  anything  happening 
worthy  of  recount. 

On  the  fifth,  Jacks  and  I,  entering  the  brush  arbor  for 
our  supper,  saw  the  Mexican  youth,  instead  of  a  divinity 
in  a  spotless  waist  and  a  navy-blue  skirt,  taking  in  the 
dollars  through  the  barbed-wire  wicket. 

We  rushed  into  the  kitchen,  meeting  Pa  Hinklc  roming 
out  with  two  cups  of  hot  coffee  in  his  hands. 

"Where's  Ilcen?"  we  asked,  in  recitative. 

Pa  Hinkle  was  a  kindly  man.  "Well,  gents,"  said  he, 
"it  was  a  sudden  notion  she  took ;  but  I've  got  the  money, 
and  I  let  her  have  her  way.  She's  gone  to  a  corn  —  a 
conservatory  in  Boston  for  four  years  for  to  have  her 
voice  cultivated.  Now,  excuse  me  to  pass,  gents,  for  this 
coffee's  hot,  and  my  thumbs  is  tender." 

That  night  there  were  four  instead  of  three  of  us  sit 
ting  on  the  station  platform  and  swinging  our  feet.  C. 


A  Poor  Rule  257 

Vincent  Vesey  was  one  of  us.  We  discussed  things  while 
dogs  barked  at  the  moon  that  rose,  as  big  as  a  five-cent 
piece  or  a  flour  barrel,  over  the  chaparral. 

And  what  we  discussed  was  whether  it  is  better  to  lie 
to  a  woman  or  to  tell  her  the  truth. 

And  as  all  of  us  were  young  then,  we  did  not  come  to  a 
decision. 


THE   ENE) 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


AMERICAN 
BOOK  SPRINTING  CO 

^AVESAN  FRANCISCO  2 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

AA      000279646 


